Technology news and views

• USBDummyProtect – If you use USB sticks a lot you may not know just how unclean they can become when being poked in an out of different computers, it's likely that without protection you'll pick up a virus. This tool fills up the empty space on your USB drive to protect it from malware infection.
• How to turn your iPod touch into an iPhone: 4G Edition – Does what it says on the tin…there are pros…but there are also cons.
• MyDefrag PowerGUI: optimize and defagment your hard drive easily – Last I heard fragmentation is no longer an issue on NTFS formated hard drives, don't remember the technical reason, but assume it holds as it was one of Leo Laporte's lackies who suggested that was the case. But, you may still like the idea of spring cleaning a disk or you may be using a non-NTFS format, in which case this is, accordding to Freeware Genius the best defrag program available.
• Facebook online privacy breach – WSJ reveals that all ten of the top ten Facebook apps (Farmille, Texas Hold 'em, Frontier Ville, Phrases etc) have all leaked personal data to third parties.
• Windows browsers benchmarked: October 2010 edition – Google Chrome web browser really is the only choice if you're after speed and stability and aren't too worried about the occasional missing bell or whistle that you get with Firefox or Opera.
• Reactive and proactive antivirus – Having anti-malware installed that can fend off old viruses is important as old viruses never really die, but it's even more important to have an AV tool in place that can respond quickly to new malware threats. Virus Bulletin publishes results of its RAP tests to show where the various offerings sit in the AV space. Those near the top right corner are the best, but they're not all free.