It was only after my brother gave me an old Windows 98 machine two years ago,that i got into computing and once it was fired up,it said the security software was out of date and i would have to pay a fee from now on for updates etc.Being a complete novice,i shot off to PC World and bought an off-the-shelf security system,anti virus and firewall combined. Not knowing anything about freeware,i put up with the computer being slow and the updates taking ages to download,because i knew no better.
I had only had the computer two days,when a good mate of mine Dan and i were out walking and we were moaning and groaning about life in general,when he suggested starting a blog called Grumpy Old Bastards,sadly ,no longer with us.Through this blog,i got to know and become really dear friends with Carol,from Carols Vault,who for some reason took me under her wing and became a guiding light for me..Now,during the early days of our friendship,Carol used to tell me about all the great freeware i should be using and i used to think,how can free software be as good as paid for software,but thankfully,i’ve been proved wrong.
The Windows 98 system died,so i went out and bought a new PC,that came with a security system pre-installed,but after a couple of weeks of using it,i’d had enough and asked Carol to recommend a anti virus and firewall i could use and she recommended AVG 7.5 (as it was then) and Zone Alarm firewall.Both of these worked perfectly and a love of freeware was born.
It is so easy to create a good security system for nothing,with the amount of quality free software that is out there,and the only two problems i’ve had since turning to freeware,was through using two free downloads of full priced software downloaded from a computer magazine.The first one caused me to do a System Restore and after using the second one,i had to do a full reinstall.
So all i’m going to do now,is list some quality freeware that will keep your system,safe and secure and running nice and smoothly.I’ll start with the Anti Virus software
AVG Anti Virus Free Edition - Comes with Resident Shield,anti spyware,link scanner and email checker built in
Avast! Anti Virus - Comes with built in anti spyware and anti rootkit
Avira AntiVir Free Edition - Gives you basic protection against viruses,trojans,worms,etc
All three will give you good protection,i use AVG.
For a free firewall,take your pick from these three
Comodo Firewall Pro Free - Great firewall,if you are prepared to spend a bit of time setting it up
Zone Alarm - Works straight out of the box but you can tweak the settings
Ashampoo Firewall - Again,very easy to set up.
For spyware and malware,you can use a combination of these three,
Spyware Terminator - Offers Real Time protection
SSpyware Blaster - Works in the background like Windows Defender,preventing the installation of spyware and other unwanted software and restricts the actions on unwanted sites in Internet Explorer
Spybot S&D - Will scan for Spyware,malware,hijackers etc.
And to keep your system nice and clean,you could use any of these,all will do a similar job,
NCleaner
Glary Utilities
CCleaner.
As a further defence,you could use Firefox 3,in which you can use extensions like Adblock Plus or Wot (Web Of Trust) to further help with online security,both are excellent extensions and do a fantastic job.
AIM 6.9.1.2 Beta - Next generation release of AOL instant messenger
VirtualBox 1.6.4
