Using a Free Anti-Virus Software for the Home PC

It is a must to have an anti virus product installed and running in your home PC, especially if you connect to the internet. I didn't have one installed since all I did on my PC was watch DVDs :) Once I got my internet connection I had to find a good product to install as the first order of business.

When it comes to anti virus software you cant find a single dominant product even though the number of popular products are small. One year its Nortan that seems to get all the good reviews and in a few months it's McAfee. So it's a good idea to search around the web for latest reviews and I came across few posts mentioning AVG Anti-Virus and most importantly the existence of a free version :)

Been a Sri Lankan with a Sri Lankan salary, free sounds very enticing. They provide three free programs for anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-rootkit. Basically the difference between AVG Pro (not the premium version which includes a firewall as well) and free versions are.

1. With the paid version you get technical support (I don't think I will ever need it)
2. Consent for commercial use (This is for my personal computer)
3. Faster downloads (update files)

All of the above are not issues and I can say the downloads are fast with the free version and they tend to be few hundreds of kilo bytes (unlike the few mega bytes of downloads of updates you get with Nortan).

I downloaded the free versions of Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware and Anti-Rootkit and installed all 3 of them. All of them seems to be fast and not resource hogs.

So if you are a cheap ass like me AVG is the product for you. It might not be the greatest and in anti-virus business there is no such thing as a great product. No product can protect you against all viruses and with few good practices you can reduce the possibility of been hit by a virus, worm or a trojan.

Another must is a firewall and I'll save that for another post.

Opening an RFC Account in Sri Lanka

Opening a RFC account in SL has become one of those really difficult tasks just like most other things, maybe it was always this difficult. Anyway I headed to HSBC Bambalapitya branch in hopes of opening an account few days ago as I do all my banking at HSBC.

As soon as I went in a customer service agent offered to help me out and I started to inquire about opening the account. She tells me I have to

1. Deposit a minimum of $ 500.
2. Must have proof that I worked overseas where I was paid (salary or allowance) in a foreign currency.
3. Returned to SL within the last 6 months.

To start with I didn't have $ 500 and couldn't get hold of any due to government cracking down on black market dealers. Earlier you could walk into one of those small shops in pettah and buy dollars without a hassle. Now not only they refuse to sell dollars they tell you no in a downright rude manner.

So I was busted and went home but decided to call HSBC customer care hot line and ask about the requirements again as I had the feeling the agent I spoke to didn't have much of a clue about RFC accounts.

To my surprise the sweet voice on the other end of the line tells me I can open an account with a zero balance as long as there is a minimum transfer of $500 coming in to the account from an overseas or another RFC account in SL within 2 weeks of opening the account.

Next day I went back to the bank and spoke to a different agent. She knew the exact requirements and had my account created within 5 minutes. Few things to note are

1. You will have to maintain a minimum balance equivalent to 25000 rupees in your bank portfolio (this includes all you RFC, savings and checking accounts) else I believe there is a penalty.
2. You will not be able to deposit USD notes at the counter unless you have proof you worked overseas and returned within the last 6 months.

Again the above might not be entirely correct as bank staff seemed to be mostly clueless about current regulations and I don't blame them with SL regulations changing every other day :).