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Q. Are those free PC antivirus programs safe to use?

A. The web is full of choices, but if you are looking for free protection for your computer, go with a program from an established security software company. You can find roundups and reviews online and the AV-Test.org site has a list of well-known software creators. Programs that pepper your screen with pop-ups or try to convince you that your computer is full of worms and viruses are often spyware or scams themselves.

Several companies offer free basic versions of their more complete security suites to home users including Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, Sophos and ZoneAlarm. As the range of malicious software has expanded to other computing platforms, some companies now offer free tools for the Mac and mobile platforms as well; Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac is among the options. Free apps that specifically protect against ransomware (like Bitdefenders Anti-Ransomware Tool for Windows) can also be found.

When browsing for software, make sure you are actually getting a copy of the companys free antivirus tool and not just the free trial version of a more comprehensive paid program. Depending on the program, you may be asked to share user data for research or see ads and upgrade offers within the free software. Paid versions typically provide more comprehensive protections, like network or game scanning.

Microsoft makes its own antivirus software for its Windows systems. If it is not already installed, Windows 7 users can download the Microsoft Security Essentials program from the companys site. The current version of Windows 10 comes with the Windows Defender Security Center for blocking viruses and other threats; go to the Settings app and open the Update & Security icon to check your coverage. (Apple builds in protective features like app-screening and anti-phishing alerts into its Mac OS software, but a third-party program goes further.)

Security software can help block malicious code from invading your computer, but be on guard for more socially engineered attacks from email and other online sources. StaySafeOnline.org has a guide to spam and phishing lures, and other threats to avoid.

Personal Tech invites questions about computer-based technology to techtip@nytimes.com. This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually.

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Protecting Your Computer with Free Software - New York Times

Jacksonville Business Journal

Finxact launches free software platform Jacksonville Business Journal Finxact's API is available through its sandbox, a safe software environment to isolate and run new programs. The company was the first core banking provider to join the Open API Initiative, an effort to standardize the systems on which applications ... and more »

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Finxact launches free software platform - Jacksonville Business Journal

Designed by Pierpaolo Lazzarini from Italian company Jet Capsule. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

Jet Capsule/Cover Images

A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

Getty Images

A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

Getty Images

Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi

Rex

Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session

Rex

A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

Reuters

A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

Reuters

A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

Rex

A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

Reuters

A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

Reuters

A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London

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A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv

Getty

Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S

Reuters

The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. This is a production preview of the Jaguar I-PACE, which will be revealed next year and on the road in 2018

AP

Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan

Reuters

Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03'

Reuters

Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan

Reuters

Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

Reuters

The interior of Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

Reuters

Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0

Reuters

A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

Reuters

Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo. The Connected company is a part of seven Toyota in-house companies that was created in April 2016

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A Toyota Motors employee demonstrates a smartphone app with the company's pocket plug-in hybrid (PHV) service on the cockpit of the latest Prius hybrid vehicle during Toyota's "connected strategy" press briefing in Tokyo

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An exhibitor charges the battery cells of AnyWalker, an ultra-mobile chasis robot which is able to move in any kind of environment during Singapore International Robo Expo

Getty

A robot with a touch-screen information apps stroll down the pavillon at the Singapore International Robo Expo

Getty

An exhibitor demonstrates the AnyWalker, an ultra-mobile chasis robot which is able to move in any kind of environment during Singapore International Robo Expo

Getty

Robotic fishes swim in a water glass tank displayed at the Korea pavillon during Singapore International Robo Expo

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An employee shows a Samsung Electronics' Gear S3 Classic during Korea Electronics Show 2016 in Seoul, South Korea

Reuters

Visitors experience Samsung Electronics' Gear VR during the Korea Electronics Grand Fair at an exhibition hall in Seoul, South Korea

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Amy Rimmer, Research Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, demonstrates the car manufacturer's Advanced Highway Assist in a Range Rover, which drives the vehicle, overtakes and can detect vehicles in the blind spot, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

PA wire

Chris Burbridge, Autonomous Driving Software Engineer for Tata Motors European Technical Centre, demonstrates the car manufacturer's GLOSA V2X functionality, which is connected to the traffic lights and shares information with the driver, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

PA wire

Ford EEBL Emergency Electronic Brake Lights is demonstrated during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

PA

Full-scale model of 'Kibo' on display at the Space Dome exhibition hall of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center, in Tsukuba, north-east of Tokyo, Japan

EPA

Miniatures on display at the Space Dome exhibition hall of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center, in Tsukuba, north-east of Tokyo, Japan. In its facilities, JAXA develop satellites and analyse their observation data, train astronauts for utilization in the Japanese Experiment Module 'Kibo' of the International Space Station (ISS) and develop launch vehicles

EPA

The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to the music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight. At this biennial event, the participating companies exhibit their latest service robotic technologies and components

Getty

The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight

Getty

Government and industry are working together on a robot-like autopilot system that could eliminate the need for a second human pilot in the cockpit

AP

Aurora Flight Sciences' technicians work on an Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automantion System (ALIAS) device in the firm's Centaur aircraft at Manassas Airport in Manassas, Va.

AP

Stefan Schwart and Udo Klingenberg preparing a self-built flight simulator to land at Hong Kong airport, from Rostock, Germany

EPA

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Mobdro: What is the 'new Kodi' that lets you stream TV, films and sport for free? - The Independent

July 12 2017, 12:01am,The Times

Roger Boyes

Europeans are embracing the idea that nation states, not the EU, must deal with immigration

Theres a German word for it: Weltschmerz, the thud of anxiety that comes from living through, or alongside global upheaval. Brexit, Trump, serial terror attacks, the Grenfell Tower fire, we have all been touched by it, the galloping migraine-inducing pace of events.

Imagine, then, what it feels like to live on the Italian island of Lampedusa, to have welcomed with aching hearts the thousands of refugees who washed up on its shores after the 2011 Arab uprisings, and to have shared the meagre infrastructure, so poor that pregnant locals have to take the long ferry ride to Sicily for a check-up. Then to be abandoned by the European Union and the Italian government, as the Mediterranean route became the chief entry path into the Continent

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Hungary was right about the migrant crisis - The Times

But in reality, the role of the NGOs and EU border agencies in the migrant crisis is much darker and morally ambiguous. They are not simply responding to the problem of people smuggling; theyve become part of the problem. Last year, for instance, their vessels started sitting just over 12 miles off the North African coast, on the edge of Libyas territorial limit. Because it was there that they were ideally placed to pick up the rubber dinghies of people chugging out to them. It was almost as if it was a tacit arrangement between the traffickers and the EU/NGO agencies which in some cases it was, complete with greased palms and mutual pay-offs. To say the EU and NGOs were colluding with the gangs of people smugglers, as some Italian politicians and prosecutors have alleged, is perhaps too strong an accusation to be levelled at the NGOs as a whole. But they have certainly become unwittingly complicit in the people-smuggling business, so much so that the gangs dont even bother with the pretence of seaworthy craft, because they know their desperate clients will be picked up a few miles offshore. The NGOs and EU agencies are effectively encouraging people-smuggling, and dressing it up as an ethical gesture. Theyre now fully contributing to and exacerbating the problem to which they pose as the answer. If there ever was any virtue to be signalled here, it is now almost certainly lost in a fog of exploitation, opportunism and cynicism.

But the miserable, hypocritical and inhumane reality of the EUs pro-migration pose is truly exposed by the lack of responsibility the EU and its supporting cast of NGOs actually takes for the migrants. As it stands, the vast majority taking the Mediterranean route are taken to Italy and, in particular, Lampedusa, a small island 200 kilometres south of Sicily. Because of the EUs Dublin Regulation, which states that the country in which an asylum-seeker first enters the EU must process his or her case, the responsibility for dealing with the hundreds of thousands of migrants asylum-seekers or otherwise has effectively been dumped on Italy.

Now, if those Italians whose towns have been turned into migrant holding stations had been allowed to debate the migration issue; if those living in Lampedusa and the other migrant destinations in Italy had been part of a process of democratic deliberation; and if they had been allowed to voice their concerns, and influence the decisions which have led to the influx of migrants, then perhaps the seething resentment, the sense of being imposed upon, of having their lives turned upside down with the stroke of a pen in Brussels, might have been absent. Perhaps a more workable solution could even have been found. And perhaps the migrants themselves wouldnt be treated as a problem, but as people just like us, sometimes fleeing wretched lives, always seeking better ones.

But none of that has happened. Instead, the EU has effectively told the Italian people to shut up. To add insult to injury, the EU Commission, in order for Italy to cover the costs of processing and dealing with the migrants, even allowed Italy to borrow more than the EUs deficit rules would otherwise permit, storing up further problems for a nation already in financial and political hock to the EUs wealthier nations.

The result is a mess. In Italy, the anger among those on whom the pro-migration drive has been imposed is rising. Not because the people of Lampedusa or Brescia or even Rome are racist. But because they are having their lives upturned and their wills effaced at the behest of the EU and the NGOs advertising their virtue in the Med. The chasm that divides the pro-migration moraliser of the pro-EU class and actual citizens of the EU is captured in the fate of Giusi Nicolini, the former mayor of Lampedusa and pro-migration stalwart, who was feted by the worlds elite, winning a UNESCO peace prize and dining with then US president Barack Obama, but roundly rejected by her actual constituents, who turfed her out of office in last years mayoral election. It wasnt a surprise to us that she lost, said Salvatore Martello, the hotel owner, fisherman and independent who won the election. In the years she was mayor, she curated an image abroad of [Lampedusa] and the migrant situation, forgetting its people. And make no mistake: the EU, like the ex-mayor of Lampedusa who embraced its ethos, does forget its people. Not by accident, but wilfully, determinedly. If they raise their hands, if they voice their concerns, if they attempt to exert some control over their lives, they are dismissed as racist, intolerant, xenophobic people to be left behind, to be cast out of acceptable society, to be forgotten.

Italy is desperate, though. The Italian government is threatening to close Italian ports to the NGO vessels carrying their cargo of pro-migration sentiment. But it is only threatening to do so because it has been left with no choice. It has repeatedly asked the EU, and its member states, if they would relieve it of at least part of the burden for dealing with the migrants. But the answer has been a firm Nein. Well not back the so-called regionalisation of rescue operations, retorted German interior minister Thomas de Maizire ahead of an informal meeting of EU ministers in Tallinn last month. The EU commissioner for immigration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, has been more placatory. Italy is right that the situation is untenable, he said, adding: In everything we do, we all have a humanitarian obligation to save lives we cannot leave a handful of EU countries on their own to deal with this. Yet, in practice, Avramopouloss solution is to give Italy a little more cash, which will no doubt be added to the pile it already owes the EU, and to urge North African nations to do their bit, too.

Avramopoulos and de Maizire were merely saying what other EU nations are already doing: they were advertising their pro-migration sentiment while insulating themselves from the consequences. France and Switzerland imposed strict, heavily militarised border controls last year. And Austria is also now arming its border with Italy to make sure Italy deals with the migrant crisis alone.

So not only does the reality of the migration crisis in the EU expose the myth of a borderless, open, welcoming territory it also exposes the absence of one of the main reasons given for supporting the EU: solidarity between nations. Instead, the propagation of migration as an ethical good by the pro-EU class, and its NGO crusaders, is dividing nations, turning them against one another, and demonising some as racist and lionising others as leaders in virtue. Europe is dying, said Luigi Di Maio, a Five Star Movement MP earlier this year. France and Spain threaten to close their ports, and Austria will deploy the army at the Brenner border crossing. Walls emerge and Europe reveals its true face: at the time of need, every man for himself. In Italy, are we alone.

In this, the controversial Di Maio was, for once, not being melodramatic. In the migration crisis, the EU is revealing its true face. Or, better still, its two faces, the one smugly proclaiming its pro-migration virtue, while the other damns migrants to camps and processing centres, and dismisses citizens concerns as the ramblings of the backward and bigoted.

The EU is not only not Europe; it is also against Europe.

Tim Black is a spiked columnist.

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The EU: pitting migrants against citizens - Spiked