where to find comparative software reviews

[BobLewiston]

Can anybody tell me where to find comparative software reviews that would indicate the most secure OS, antivirus, antispyware / antimalware, firewall, clean-up utility, browser, malicious website warning, etc.?

[Azzaboi]

Unbios software and technology reviews - CNET Reviews is pretty good:
http://reviews.cnet.com/

Then PriceSpy to find the best prices (but thats for New Zealand only but might be others like it?):
http://pricespy.co.nz/

Personal opinion - just to check out if you want...
The most secure OS? ummm is DOS counted?
Good antispyware, I would recommend Lavasoft Ad-aware or Spybot.
Best anti-malware, well NOD32 is said to have good detection, but I perfer Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 as it has firewall and other features as well.
Clean-up utility? Advance System Care Pro
Browser? Internet Explorer 6! (jokes, but honestly all browsers have there faults)

[Dusty]

Browser reviews - Google for Browser Reviews
Antivirus reviews - Google for Antivirus Reviews
Firewall reviews - Google for Firewall Reviews
AntiSpyware reviews - Google for Aantispyware Reviews
Disk cleanup software reviews - Google for Disk Cleanup Software Reviews
Malicious website warning reviews - Google for Malicious Website Warning Reviews
Operating systems reviews - Google for Operating System Reviews

Be aware that some of the reviews may be written by subscribers who are not totally independent of whoever supplies the software for review i.e. they may be paid to produce the review, that's how they make a buck.   If you were paid by Mozilla to do a comparative review of FireFox vs Opera would Opera come out ahead?

When the dust settles it's the user who decides which software to use regardless of any review, if you are happier using Opera than you are using FireFox then Opera is for you.

[BobLewiston]

Attention, Azzaboi:

Unbios software and technology reviews - CNET Reviews is pretty good:
http://reviews.cnet.com/

Thanks for replying, but that's not what I want. I don't want to have to find out on my own about a whole bunch of apps, feed in their names, one at a time, to Cnet Review's search engine, get a separate review for each app, and then try to collate the results of these reviews myself to determine which is best for each category (antivirus, antimalware, firewall, clean-up, malicious website warning, etc.). I want a competent reviewer to tell me "here are what the top contenders are, and here is the one I / we (or a poll of users) think is best for each category". I've seen such reviews for OSs and browsers, so why not for the categories I've listed above? (And while we’re on the subject of what I want in an ideal world, how about such comparative reviews for all free apps?) But maybe nobody publishes such things.

Attention, Dusty:

Of course I’ve already used search engines. And there are metasearch engines (such as Dogpile) that incorporate Google and other good search engines that I think do a better job than Google alone.

[Dusty]

Of course I’ve already used search engines. And there are metasearch engines (such as Dogpile) that incorporate Google and other good search engines that I think do a better job than Google alone.

There you go, you've just written your first(?) comparative review.

[Geek-9pm]

the most secure OS

None. If you mean an OS the is versatile enough to do all of the things people want. Like take a video and serve it on the Web.

You can get a internet appliance the only lets you serf the Internet, but does not pass or receive any information other that just showing a regular web page. But such devices have an OS that you might not think of as a OS. It is all hard wired code that can not be modified. Unless it is in Flash memory.

The way things are going, the day may come when web surfing will become regulated. At least to the extent of standards as to what kind of information can be sent. Any devices that can be updated over the web will be baled an ;unsafe' device. Maybe not by the government, but  your insurance company.

Like this. You hose burns down while you were on 30 day vacation. YThe $200,000 home was being monitored by a high tech security company.You had a good PC and the security system  tied into the web via your PC and a DSL link. Some kind of Mallarme gets into your PC. Burgles raid you house once they spoof the security system. After stealing everything of value, they set fire to your house to destroy the evidence.
Your insurance company investigates and finds the your PC was not secure. They superman records of the ISP to show that a hostile site forced a download onto the Windows 7. Based on this, they want you to settle for a fraction of the value you lost. And in the future you can only use a remote security system that is fully certified to specifications given by the major insurance companies.
This is going to be a plot for a new TV show next fall. So I can not give any more details. However,  the producer's  own PC got infected and the script got published on hack sites. Maybe that  I got this story. So the new show may not even go to air. They don't know how to keep the scripts safe before the show airs.
But if you find a great  OS that can do video editing and file streaming and is bulletproof, let the people at NBC and let them know what you found.