ClearCloud prevents you from being able to access known nasty websites, sites that will download malicious files to your computer. Even better, ClearCloud prevents you from being able to access nasty websites that you may not even know your computer is trying to access—and it prevents those nasty little programs from phoning home.

There is no database stored on your computer (sweet), it is all in the cloud.

Malware today doesn´t get installed from bad web sites—rather, a tiny little program is downloaded from those sites that phones home and proceeds to download the real nasty program. These tiny little programs are called Trojans, after the Trojan horse legend, where an apparently innocent statue is moved into the city, and when everyone is asleep, the culprits hidden inside open up the gates of the city and let in the enemy.

It works like this, each day Sunbelt Software process´s from 100,000 to 1 million samples a day, and monitor what every sample does. Some of these samples are not malicious, but many are. Many of these samples try to "phone home," and when they do, they capture that web address. So when your browser tries to go to a web address that has been deemed unsafe ClearCloud steps in and blocks the site from loading.

At heart, ClearCloud is a DNS server. DNS stands for Domain Name Service. Every website on the planet is located by a number address, known as an IP address, similar to a phone number. Be advised that your DNS settings will be changed to ClearCloud´s which is no biggie as there is a little applet that does this for you. You also have the option in the applet to turn off ClearCloud.

I have been using this little fella for aeveral weeks now and on several occasions it has blocked nasty web sites. Another plus is it will not in anyway slow down your browsing, in fact in some cases it might even be faster then the DNS server you are using now.

You can get more info and download the ClearCloud applet here at ClearCloud´s website. It´s Free!

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