ThePirateBay is already a popular giant and needs no introduction. It is the most popular torrent-indexing site on the internet, and also one of the sites, most debated upon at the time. The copyright issues against it are now receiving a strong voice from the people. About everywhere there are supports for ThePirateBay. The Pirate Party (PiratPartiet) of Sweden is spreading it's influence all over the world. It aims to create a free Internet, and moderate the copyright laws, all the while preserving the privacy.

I earlier wrote against piracy, but I was never so strongly against it. You can read one of the posts here, which received many comments from the people (Notice that all the comments are supporting piracy... Strange, isn't it?). And now, after extensive mind bend, I am a somewhat moderate supporter of the copyright problem. Yes, the people have the right to share everything they see and do. And it will not be a surprise if The Pirate Party wins in the EU elections. It has gained a massive support from the youth section. It's popularity increases tremendously, daily. Mainly getting support from the extensive campaigning on the Internet, The Pirate Party of Sweden gets ever-increasing support from the young on the Internet. With increasing membership, it has ample chances of making ThePiratebay win the battle against the World.

ThePirateBay, once just a simple torrent-indexing site, has now turned into one of the most intrigued things in the copyright sphere. Voicing the speech of the "common" people [who are affected by the economic depression ;) ], it becomes the real saviour of the people.

But after the entire thing it does is nearly totally piracy, and until some "piracy law" comes up, it will remain convicted to the cell with the label of a crime. But that too might change if The Pirate Party comes to power (See this site of The PiratPartiet (original), and translated in English). It is really appreciable on the part of the people who have achieved such a feat. Making something nearly impossible come true. Cheers to all the dedication of all the supporters of Piracy, who have done such a job, which was nearly impossible.

I even see some "big guys of the internet" supporting piracy. After coming to know that, I nearly totally came to believe that ThePirateBay is going to win the race. Earlier, it got support from just the "common people", but now it is that even the rich people (who can pay for the things, but possibly downloaded pirated movies - but now it wont be a problem, it seems) support the cause of the people, and so, their side is quite heavy.

Though I do not completely wish them to have their victory ( anyone who has done some copyrighted work will agree to me), but I am not a total opposer of them. I have only downloaded a few things from torrents (like Open Suse, Ubuntu, etc), but such a time fires my imagination, when the whole internet will be a safe and free heaven for the people.

Vista Weather Gadget is one of the gadgets that comes built-in with Vista, giving real time Weather conditions and forecasts through msn weather service. As many must have noticed till now, the Weather Gadget of Vista is experiencing a bug, and is down. Many a times, it shows the message "Service not available" when one wishes to see the weather forecast for tomorrow. Even if a place in North America is entered in it, it shows the same message, "Service not Available". It might be a temporary problem, or a major one, but a great substitute is available, that has better features than the original built-in weather gadget.


A huge number of sites provide patches for the Weather Gadget, but the thing lays that it is not necessary to patch or crack, but a better version is available, and if that is used, no harm will occur.





This gadget can be downloaded from here: Download Vista Weather Gadget Substitute

This gadget is just a modified version of the original Vista Weather Gadget, and has some enhanced features, like it shows a 5-day forecast in flyout, and has some modified settings too. It's simplicity in desing is most appealing, and it fits better on screen than Weatherbug, or other Weather Gadgets. It is a must have for all that loved the original Vista Weather Gadget, and the Yahoo Weather Widget.

Often it is felt by all that if a software is a paid one, it is bound to be better than a free software. In case of protecting the computer from Viruses, Spywares and hackers, it is all the way more important to have a reliable security suite. But I can name some such free softwares that can do the work of protecting your computer equal to or even better than the paid applications.

Three important softwares round up the suite. These are:

• Comodo Firewall, for the firewall application
  
• Avast Antivirus (home), for an effective antivirus
  
• Spyware Terminator, for preventing hackers and spyware softwares from attacking the computer, and sending the personal information through the internet to the hackers

All these tools are completely free, and are as effective as any of the paid applications, if used in a combination. They together create a perfect Security Suite to protect the computer from threats from the web and other sources.


Comodo Firewall:

Comodo Firewall is one of the best known and most effective firewalls. Passed through extensive leak testing, so that nothing can pass through it's protection barrier, it has become the most dependable firewall, that can detect and prevent any attack on the computer. It protects against both external, and internal attacks on the computer. It works as well as the paid firewalls, but it's free. It prevents even those programs from accesing the internet whose trickery even passed through other firewalls. As all other firewalls, initially, a large number of pop-ups come up, telling that such and such programs (a huge number) are accesing the internet. But at first it shall be put into training mode to detect and allow all the programs that access the internet. Then it runs very smoothly. The notifications are too, better than many other firewalls. It is the first step to creating a leak proof security suite.

Download Comodo Firewall


Spyware Terminator:

It is a totally free Spyware detector, with results comparable to many paid spyware detectors. It is an award winning software used by millions of users worldwide. The popularity is all that is needed to prove it's efficiency. Spyware Terminator gives fast Spyware Scanning, Real Time protection and everything expected from a paid spyware detector. Like Comodo Firewall, it gives reports that are easy-to-interpret, making it easy to determine whether a program is needed to be removed. Does boot time scanning, very light and unobtrusive. Again, just like Comodo Firewall, it needs some attention in the Training period, but afterwards it works very silently and efficiently. I have been using it for quite some time, and it has never caused me any problem. It makes the second step to a fully free, completely secure antivirus suite.

Download Spyware Terminator



Avast Home Edition:

This is the last and the major step towards creating the free antivirus suite we have been creating for long. It provides great protection, even like the major paid antivirus softwares, yet it is free (surprising, isn't it)? Avast Home edition has an inbuilt Anti-Spyware, but I would insist upon using Spyware Terminator for the job. You can read about this antivirus in this post, here. Though paid antiviruses have better protection, but if these three tools are used simultaneously, they give a supreme protection. This protection can be even better than the paid antivirus suites. Avast Antivirus has a simple interface (which is lacking in the paid Kaspersky Internet Security 9), and an effective virus chest too. With small update sizes, and integrated Virus Cleaner, it is one of the most popular Antivirus Tools.

Download Avast Home Edition


This rounds up the Ultimate Anti- PC threat suite. All these used combined, can even challenge the paid applications like Kaspersky. An A-Z protection ranging from Boot-time scanning to blocking suspicious activities on the pc, these three tools will create your own free, personalised all-round computer protection suite. I have been using these tools for months, and have not got a single problem yet. All Viruses that affect my PC are captured, and every spyware is treated in it's deserving way. I get regular updates, and am quite satisfied with the protection these provide.

Before going into details of this post, I would like to create a background. You can see this anti-piracy post here, and read the comments from the people. Isn't it strange that everyone (except myself) who has made a comment on the post supports piracy? Does everyone who comes on this blog supports piracy so strongly? No. They do not feel so strongly, but are simply addicted to piracy. Piracy is like dope. The more you have, the more you are implored to have. And just like dope, there is a solution to get out of it's clutches. The people themselves have now found a solution to this. The answer is- Open Source, Free Softwares.

Many user-made, free, open source softwares have come up on the internet to solve the problem. As is evident, an Operating System, and a Word Processor package is nearly all that is required for the office work. Currently the market is captured by Windows (for Operating System) and Microsoft Office (for Word Processor). But both the applications have user made variants too. Open Suse (the free Linux based OS), and OpenOffice (the free word processor) do the work. Why resort to piracy when these free softwares can do the work? I am to describe about each of the two applications in this post.


OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite

OpenOffice.org is the leading open-source office software for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases etc., from Sun Microsystems. It supports many languages and computers. It even reads data from other office softwares. The special thing is, it is completely open source meaning that anyone edit the features, request new features, or enhance the suite. This gives you a chance to get your own requirements added to the suite, getting your wish catered to, as well as improving the already fine software. It has no licence, can be downloaded on any number of computers, gives ever increasing number of updates, and is available in your native language too, making it much easy to use. It is the choice of the day. Open Office can be downloaded here.



OpenSuse.org- A free Linux-based Operating System for the computers

Many developers round the world who believe that softwares shall not be paid for, have made a project of creating the world's most usable Linux. It is deemed to become a commom platform for Linux hackers and application developers. It comprises of all the things needed in an Operating System. Above all, it's free, and now-a-days, there is a big rush for Open Suse, which has ample chances of challenging Windows. Like OpenOffice.org, it consists of defect reporting, that will improve the Operating System. It is created by the people themselves. Anyone can register and add their codes to the Open Suse project. So, when the people themselves do the job, they will be content with it, and have their share in the promotion of the thing. Thus, it will become one of the most user-friendly Operating System, consisting of all the features that the users want. It will be (and is already becoming) a direct challenge to Windows. OpenSuse can be downloaded here.


Thus, when these, and many, many other softwares are present, one can do without resorting to piracy. If one need not resort to piracy, the world be cleaner, and no ThePirateBay verdict will be passed. Many other common applications used by people have substitutes, which some or in the other way, are better or atleast upto the mark of the existing giants.

I am not a huge torrent downloader myself,
but since I came to know about the popularity of torrents, and about ThePirateBay, I thought to give it a shot. I tried to download Open Suse, the free operating system (just to test- I wanted to do this for a long time). Since it was a big file (4 GB or so), I got a chance to explore things while downloading this. I came to know about many new things. I tried many new clients, and wish to analyse two of them which struck me the most, for others who are unable to determine which client to use. I tried µTorrent and Bitlord (I used others like basic BitTorrent client but liked these two).

Here is what I learned:


µTorrent is truly a miniature client, and very efficient. Bitlord is another great client which gives great download-upload rates.

Now a pointwise comparison between these two:

• µTorrent is a great client, but I found a big defect in it. It does not connect to seeds/peers very slowly. Bitlord connects faster. All the Settings of both the clients were the same, and also the same ports were used.
• µTorrent has another problem- it has no proper peer banning option. The procedure is a bit tedious. Bitlord is very fine in this thing.
• Bitlord has a big file size, while µTorrent is a very small file. It encompasses many features which are proper of a good client.
• BitLord does not support DHT.
• µTorrent does not support NAT traversal.
• BitLord is an Adware.

The most significant problem with µTorrent is that it does not give a high download speed, while Bitlord has got a distinction (in my mind) of giving the highest download speeds.This made me use Bitlord and discard µTorrent as my personal client. Since my bandwith is not very high, I prefer Bitlord, as it provides a high download speed.

So, at the end, I would like to state that personally I like Bitlord better, though the large number of people who use µTorrent tell the popularity of this clients. The people have their own thoughts, and I have mine. I have stated mine, and would like others to suggest their thoughts.

See also, how can every torrent user can evade being caught