Websurfing Resources

You might also wish to visit our Sites We Like page for our less technically-inclined links, as well as our Webmastering Resources page to feed the webmaster within you.

Web Sites

These websites have provided us with invaluable insights, tricks, and techniques to improve and enhance our websurfing experience and our general internet knowledge.

Trend Micro's Housecall is a free online virus scanner. It can take quite a while to run, especially the first time and even more especially on a dialup modem, but it is FREE! *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

SheildsUP! at Gibson Research Corporation's grc.com is the definitive first stop for those interested in internet security. The ShieldsUp site will quickly and benignly probe your PC the way a hacker would and identify and explain any vulnerabilities that it finds. *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

Software

Here are some shareware and freeware programs that we've used that make surfing more productive. Please note that Riversdell and/or LunaTek Consulting have no connection with the purveyors of these software products.

FireFox empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Join more than 12 million others and make the switch today. Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information, so you have nothing to lose. Stop annoying popup ads in their tracks with Firefox's built in popup blocker. View more than one web page in a single window with this time saving feature. Open links in the background so that they're ready for viewing when you're ready to read them. Built with your security in mind, Firefox keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware by not loading harmful ActiveX controls. A comprehensive set of privacy tools keep your online activity your business. FREE! *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

Thunderbird makes emailing safer, faster, and easier than ever before with the industry's best implementations of features such as intelligent spam filters, built-in RSS reader, quick search, and much more. It is designed to prevent viruses and to stop junk mail so you can get back to reading your mail. FREE! *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

Grisoft's AVG Free Edition is the well-known anti-virus protection tool. AVG Free is available free-of-charge to home users for the life of the product! Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high-level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy-to-use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements). FREE! *HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*

Alchemy Mindworks is an innovative Canadian company that has many nifty software products, including GIF Construction Set, which, through no fault of its own, is responsible for more of those annoying dancing logos than any other program out there. The company's website also provides a handful of novels, plus several non-computer articles, including the amusing and informative Deficits and Deceptions - Economics for the Credulously-Challenged.

ZoneAlarm, ZoneLabs legendary basic firewall, is free to individual and non-profit users. If you are surfing without a firewall, you are taking risks. If you want more information about computer security see the GRC link in the websites section above.