Stories by: Preston Gralla

Fans of all-in-one security suites should take a serious look at the just-released Kaspersky Internet Security 2009, which includes modules for antivirus, antispyware, firewall and more, yet uses little enough system resources and RAM that it won't slow down or clog up your system.

Google went from startup to behemoth in record time. But there are increasing signs that Google has become just another fat, happy, and even arrogant company, no longer the lean, industry-changing giant of the past. And that spells good news for Microsoft.

With the impending retirement of Bill Gates from Microsoft comes an obvious question: How will history view him? As a founder of the world's most influential software vendor and one of the biggest creators of wealth ever? Or as a monopolist and digital robber baron?

Mac users have long gloated that the Mac OS is safer than Windows. The gloating should stop: There's plenty of recent evidence that Vista is, in fact, a safer operating system than Mac OS X.

Apple has made such a mess of its Safari 3.1 browser for Windows that Windows users should consider boycotting the browser, because of an underhanded way of distributing it, that according to CEO honcho John Lilly says "borders on malware."

Microsoft has taken plenty of heat in the Vista "junk PC" lawsuit. If the company is smart, it will take those criticisms to heart, and make sure it doesn't make the same mistakes when it launches Windows 7. Here's what I think that suit means for Windows 7.

PowerPoint users, your world has changed. The newest version, PowerPoint 2007, features the most thorough changes since the program's birth.

Microsoft held out the peace pipe to the Open Source community when the company announced that its offering free access to its most important APIs and formerly proprietary protocols, and will offer more support for open standards. Why has Microsoft seen the light? I have a one-word answer: Google.

If you've been waiting with bated breath for XP SP3, you can start breathing normally now. It changes so little in XP that you won't even notice it's there. But hidden and underneath the hood, as I'll explain, there are a few worthy changes.

The final version of Vista SP1 focuses on under-the-hood improvements to reliability, security and performance, with very few changes made to the interface or Vista's features. Think of it as a giant, glorified set of patches and fixes rather than a clear and visible change to the operating system.

Don't like the way Internet Explorer 7 looks or works? Then change it. There are plenty of ways you can hack it, tweak it or just make it simpler to use. In this article, you'll find out how to speed up IE's display of Web sites, build your own Search Bar engine, get control over how IE prints Web pages, navigate with several essential keyboard shortcuts and more. These tips work in both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Some of the tips are quite simple to perform, while others are more advanced. Some even require Registry hacks.