My advice is to not shop by price for your antivirus software. I mean, most products only cost about $30-50 per year. That’s not a big investment to protect your computer. So if you are willing to pay for a top notch antivirus, I would reccomend NOD32. NOD32 not only stops viruses, but also a great deal of spyware too. To bootm it is very light on system resources. It is a weorld class product. But if you insist on free, I took the following from a security website (www.castlecops.com).
A System Security Suite is one which bundles all the required tools for complete System Protection, like AntiVirus, Firewall, AntiSpyware, File cleaners, Registry Cleaners etc. But all these Security suites are commercial softwares.
How about making or rather assembling your own Security Suite, which consists all the required tools? These tools in the assembled Suite are very efficient and powerful. Moreover your Security Suite is completely FREE!
Read on…………
AntiVirus:-
Well, Viruses need no introduction, do they? To battle them you need an AntiVirus!
AVG 7 Free AntiVirus is one of the few full fledged free AnitViruses. Full fledged AV means that, it should at least have Real Time scanner, On Demand scanner, Mail scanner, Automatic Updates.
AVG satisfies all the above condition and has good Virus detection, Features set, and Quick updates and is also very light on resources. You don’t have to worry about any Viruses, Worms or Trojans sneaking into your PC, AVG’s powerful Real Time background scanner will block it.
Another equally good free AntiVirus is AntiVir. AntiVir has some 1,80,000+ ( and growning ) virus definitions, which makes it one one of the largest virus database. It has very good Heuristics to detect even the latest viruses. AntiVir’s real time scanner is very light on system resources, making this one ideal for computers with lesser resources.
Avast Home Edition is another free AntiVirus, which has all the necessary features like Real time scanner, Network Shield and Web Shield for Networks and Internet, IM Shield for Instant Messengers and Automatic Updates. This new edition also supports 64 bit Windows Operating System.
AntiSpyware:-
Spywares, Adwares and Hijackers (collectively called as Malwares, short for Malicious Softwares) can do major damages to the system. Notorious malwares like CoolWebSearch are very hard to remove and are not detected/completely removed by the AntiViruses. This calls in for a special dedicated tool, AntiSpyware!
AdAware and SpyBot SnD are very good AntiSpywares which have frequently updated large database of Malwares.
SpyBot SnD has one cool tool built into it called as TeaTimer, this TeaTimer monitors the System continuously and protects the System files and Registry from Malwares.
SpyBot SnD also adds a BHO to the Internet Explorer, by using this SpyBot blocks the bad downloads(like installation of ActiveX components, BHOs by Spywares without the knowledge of the user) automatically. These two softwares are a must have in every computer.
Another good tool is Microsoft AntiSpyware, this requires Windows XP and above. This is still in it’s Beta version, but is gaining popularity!
Anti Trojan:-
Not all Trojan Horses are detected by AntiVirues and AntiSpyware. So you should have softwares which specialize in the removal of Trojans. So called BackDoor Trojans open your PC from the inside to attackers, which enables the person/website who sent the Trojan to monitor your PC. Even worse variant is so called RATware, short for Remote Administration Tool, which enables a hacker to control your PC!
a2 Free is the one of the best free Anti Trojan (and Anti Malware) software available. Free version has only a On Demand scanner and there is no real time protection.
Antoher good AntiTrojan available for Free is Ewido, this comes as 14 day trial after which special features are disabled and free, basic version can be used. It’s better to have both the scanners.
Immunize!:-
Above softwares detect and remove Virues and Malwares present in the PC, but they can not prevent them from sneaking into your system (except Real Time scanner of the AntiVirus to an extent).
SpywareBlaster prevents the installation of Malwares into system. SpywareBlaster need not be running in the background, but it’s a run once tool.
Its working principle can be described as follows, many Spywares, Hijackers make certain Registry entries called as CLSIDs. SpywareBlaster has a database of these bad CLSIDs. When we run SpywareBlaster once, it sets the Kill Bit of the bad CLSID as 1, this means, the specific CLSID is killed or it is not allowed to register. So this prevents the installation of these Spywares. This is something like Immunization!
Along with SpywareBlaster, SpyBot SnD too has a similar feature, which immunizes the system against the installation of malicious programs through browsers.
Firewall
There will be many (65535!) virtual Ports in a computer. These ports are either open or closed or used by some applications. When the PC is connected to Internet, many Worms, Hackers can scan for the open ports of PC connected, if they find an open port, they try to sneak in the System without the user’s knowledge. Popular attack of this type is SQL Slammer worm attack, known as HellKern. You would never know what’s happening in the background.
To prevent these port scanning and other malicious attacks, Firewalls should be installed.
Firewalls act as barrier between PC and Net, and filter the data that is being transmitted and received. Also, Firewalls block all the open ports so that port scanning will be unsuccessful.
A popular Free Firewall is ZoneAlarm, this is one critically acclaimed Firewall. ZoneAlarm is very light on System resources and it blocks each and every baddies without failure!
Other free firewalls available are Kerio Personal, Sygate Personal, OutPost Personal Firewall.
Clean that junk!
After some time of PC usage, junk/temp files start to accumulate. This eats up space, and also functions as favorite hideout for viruses and malwares. So it’s necessary to clean up the junk regularly. CleanUp! and CCleaner are very good Free cleaners available. They clean the every bit of junk in the system. Just run them before shutting down your PC or after disconnected from Internet to remove the junk.
Anther good junk cleaner is GLock Temp Cleaner, this along with cleaning junk files, has one extra feature that is it lists all the archives present in the System, and later we can delete the unwanted archives.
Registry Cleaner:-
If any Softwares are installed in a PC, it makes a Registry entry. Registry entries are also created by softwares to remember the user’s preferences like “Recently opened files” etc. These entries should be theoretically removed when the specific software or file is removed. But, many a times this does not happen. This leads to the accumulation of large number of junk in the registry. This degrades the System performance. This is where Registry Cleaners come into picture.
RegCleaner is one of the best free Registry cleaners available. Apart from cleaning, it has plenty of other features like Startup information, File type Editing etc.
Miscellaneous Tools:-
This is a list of free tools which perform some specialized tasks. SpywareGuard is small real time bad download protection tool, which works in a similar manner of SpywareBlaster. This actively monitors Internet Explorer and blocks any malicious ActiveX Components, BHOs and Tracking Cookies.
MRUBlaster is a small tool from the house Javacoolsoftware which makes SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard. This nifty utility scans the computer for MRU lists (Most Recently Used lists are the history kept by the applications or Windows itself like recently opened documents, search items, files opened etc). MRUBlaster can scan and remove up to 30000 different MRU entries.
UltraWipe is a software which scans for junk files in the System. But along with this, it has got some extra features like “Wipe free space”, this wipes the free space in the drive so that any deleted data can not be recovered, and “Wipe Memory”, which wipes/defragments RAM.
Emergency Tools:-
Emergency tools are those which are designed to remove specific threats. Some of the popular and free ones are listed here.
McAfee Stinger is a very good tool, which can detect and remove some 55 (and growing) common and dangerous Viruses , Trojans and their variants. It’s a stand alone On-demand scanner.
ToolBarCop is tool using which can remove/disable IE Toolbars, buttons, BHOs, Context menu entries and even Start up entries. It’s very easy to use, and when anything is removed it can create a registry backup of the removed registry entry.
HijackThis is ToolBarCop plus more. HijackThis is a tool which is normally to be used only when other tools like SpyBot SnD, AdAware etc can not find a solution to your Spyware/Adware/Malware problem.
HijackThis searches in some key areas of the System and Windows Registry and pulls out the information from it. These key areas are used by both Legitimate and Illegal software. So, if you remove all the entries that HijackThis shows, then you almost are guaranteed to perform a Format or at least a Windows Repair!
HijackThis searches and lists, Running processes, Default URLs, Search URLs of IE, IE Toolbars, WinSock Hijackers, BHOs, ActiveX components, Non-Microsoft Services and more!!!
CWShredder is a tool designed to remove the notorious CoolWebSearch Hijacks.
About:Buster is used to restore the Browser default pages, when they are hijacked by About:Blanck and other bowsers hijackers.
Online Scans
Even though we may have the best AntiVirus, AntiTrojan/Spyware tools, we are not completely secure. Because, some 500 new viruses and their variants are trying to attack us every month. And for these Security tools to detect those new threats, they need to be updated. But, update process is generally ignored and postponed! Hence, it is a better to perform an Online scans to check the System. These online tools have up to date database and they can detect more malwares than any other.
Some of the free and good Online Virus scans available are TrendMicro HouseCall, Panda AntiVirus Scan, F-Secure, BitDefender and many others. TrendMicro HouseCall is one of the most popular scanners.
There are Online Spyware/Trojan scanners too. Some of the good ones are eTrust PestPatrol Scan, WebRoot SpySweeper Scan etc. These scanners scan our PC for Spywares and Trojans.
Alternate Browsers:-
Since Internet Explorer has many vulnerabilities, it’s easy for malicious Websites to drop baddies into the System. Main target areas are Plugins for IE, BHOs, ActiveX components, Toolbars for IE. Spywares/Trojans masquerade as above these Add-ons for IE, and can do their job effectively!
So, it’s safer to switch to alternate browsers like FireFox, Opera and Mozilla Suite. These browsers, by design do not support the above listed add-ons. These browsers also offer many user friendly features like Tabbed Browsing, Inbuilt Downloader with Resume support, inbuilt search support, faster page loading etc.
By installing and scanning regularly with most of the above mentioned tools, we can ward off most of the threats.
But above all, we must have common sense – what to click, what not to click, what to download and what not to! - we can stay away from baddies if we are a bit careful!
Finally, our Security Suite contains these modules:-
AntiVirus -------------- AVG or Avast or AntiVir (only one AntiVirus should be present in computer)
AntiSpyware ---------- AdAware, SpyBot SnD, MS AntiSpyware (it’s better to have more than one AntiSpyware)
AntiTrojan ------------- a2 Free, Ewido
Immunization tool ---- SpywareBlaster
Firewall ---------------- ZoneAlarm or Sygate or OutPost or Kerio (only one firewall should be used)
Junk Cleaners --------- CCleaner, CleanUp!, Glock Temp Cleaner
Registry Cleaner ------ RegCleaner
Miscellaneous Tools – SpywareGuard, UltraWipe, MRUBlaster
Emergency Tools ---- McAfee Stinger, ToolBarCop, CWShredder, About:Buster, HijackThis
Hope this information helps……