electrons's Blog

Can you 'reliably' protect your PC from attackers and viruses for free?  YES!

In Part I, I discussed the many different types of threats to your PC. Here in Part II, I show you the best FREE online downloadable tools I found, in my opinion after testing many different tools. Of course I can not possibly discuss every possible detail…. I wanted to make this simple for ordinary home users and not get too crazy with details.

Having the pieces of free software below can cover all of the threats we discussed in Part I. However, keep in mind that no software is perfect. The complexity of emerging threats is very real. Authors of complex hacking code want to go silent and undetected. While it is impossible to be 100% protected from all threats, these tools can give you a good level of free protection that rival or beat software which is purchased.  Here are my results and winners:

FREE Antivirus Protection:

PC Tools Antivirus Free: http://www.pctools.com/free-antivirus/

Pros: Excellent! Scans in real time. Automatic updates. Many awards acquired. Even scans email!

Cons: No phone support. I had to dig to find a con of this software.

AVG Free Antivirus: http://free.grisoft.com/

Pros: Overall an "OK" package for being free.

Cons: Lacks many features. Does not scan downloads or infected web sites.

FREE Rootkit Protection:

F-Secure Blacklight: http://www.f-secure.com/security_center/

This free detection and removal software (bottom of the web page) is smart to have. Scan every few weeks to ensure you have no rootkits installed. F-Secure Blacklight is very powerful at detecting rootkits. Remember, antivirus software does not check for rootkits. Rootkits are very complex and becoming difficult to detect. F-Secure does a great job on this!

Free Adware and Spyware Protection:

Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/mirrors/index.htm
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This is powerful in detecting many spyware and adware threats. It also detected malware that other purchased tools did not. Spybot gets an A+.

Conclusion: I recommend PC Tools Antivirus, F-Secure Blacklight and Spybot to cover your system for a good level of FREE protection.

What is missed from this is something VERY important. It is equally, if not more important to check your updates on common web applications such as Adobe Reader, Media Players, Java, etc.. Updates are for a good reason… Most of them patch holes in ways hackers can get access to your system. Be sure your system is up to date, download and use the tools above and use common sense.  My five tips to safe surfing:

• Ensure your system is up to date with patches.  Adobe, Java, etc..
• Use antivirus, spyware and rootkit detection tools.  See above.
• Do not open email attachments from unknown users.  
• If you use a wireless network, use a strong password on your router. Consider MAC access filtering.
• Use strong passwords on your PC.  They should contain a symbol & number.  Example:  T5fg&12

With the above tips, you are ahead of the game.  After installing and running the above tools, you'll be amazed what is found hiding under your keyboard...  Thanks for reading...

Tom