Secunia PSI 2.0: Mini Review

When I tried to run PSI v1.5 today, it was sluggish and slow to load. In fact, it was unworkable on my XP SP3 system. The "Secure Browsing" tab showed nothing. Yesterday, it showed vulnerabilities in Safari and IE8, Firefox was ok, and Opera 11.0 was not even detected.

This was all likely related to the release of PSI 2.0 Final today: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/virus-spyware/f/3522/p/19358069/19795127.aspx#19795127

So I went to the PSI forum, and noted that users of XP SP3 were having problems installing PSI 2.0. Here is the method I used to install it sucessfully:

1) I ran CCleaner
2) I uninstalled Secunia PSI via Control panel> Add or Remove Programs.
3) Re-booted
4) Installed Secunia PSI 2.0 (I declined the Auto-update option). "PSIA.exe" was installed as a service.
5) Ran a PSI scan. All my software was "up-to date".

I was disappointed that Secunia chose to eliminate the "Secure Browsing" tab by default in PSI 2.0, despite pleas from users of the beta edition, including myself. Now all my browsers are listed as "up-todate" with respect to patches, without indicating that there are unpatched vulnerabilities in Safari 5.x, and IE 8. To my mind, this generates a false sense of security in the user.

However "Secure Browsing" can be enabled. On the left hand side, click on Settings>PSI Settings tab>put a check next to the "Enable Secure Browsing Page".

Otherwise I like this version. It is simple, yet allows one to tweak the configuration (left side of the page). It allows one to enable automatic updates of all the programs PSI monitors. No doubt this will be a benefit to the average user who does not wish to be involved with manually updating all these programs. (I give automatic updates a pass only because I prefer to retain control of all software that is installed on my PC).

Two thumbs up!