Freebies, Freebies, Freebies

Freebies, Freebies, Freebies

Protect your PC for free. Protecting your PC from nasty viruses and hackers can be costly, but it needn't be. There's a raft of free and shareware programs that do the same job for nowt!

Free Anti-Virus & Firewall Software

Microsoft Security Essentials.


Launched earlier this year, Microsoft's security essentials package has gone from strength to strength since coming out of beta testing. The package is completely free to users of 'genuine Windows machines' - ie it'll verify your copy - and three versions are available, for XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_essentials/

Avira Antivir.

The free anti-virus software of choice for techies, Antivir's won many tech publications' free antivirus round-ups by providing both the most thorough software protection and the fastest. Yet the reason it doesn't top our list is that it's slightly less user-friendly than the Microsoft offering, with some of the settings requiring some technical knowledge to get right. Yet if you've the knowhow, it'll do everything you want it to.

http://www.free-av.com/

Avast! 4.8 home edition.

Alwil's Avast! home edition offers great detection of known malware, but it's usually beaten by Antivir in tests. The latest version's a good all-rounder, providing all the features you'd get with a paid-for program, but its interface still isn't the best on offer.

http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Home-Edition-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10019223.html

AVG Free.

AVG has a long history, and has been through loads of modifications to provide a better service on its way to the current version, AVG 9. It's protection is reasonably thorough, though it doesn't offer any real tech support.

http://free.avg.com/


Panda Cloud Antivirus.

Panda's paid-for software comes highly rated, and this totally free, no nag-screen online antivirus product clearly draws on the same expertise. In fact, in some tests, Cloud Antivirus detected even more threats than the top-performing Antivir software above.

http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/

Note for Norton users only: It can be a bit of a pain to get rid of all Norton AntiVirus's components from your machine. If you're having trouble doing so, try Symantec's own Norton Removal Tool, which is designed to solve this very problem.
http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039



ClamXAV Anti-Virus for Mac.


Borne of the open source virus checker ClamAV, ClamXAV adds a user interface for Mac OSX, to make it accessible to people that don't think in code. Whilst technically it's free, donations towards the upkeep of its website will be gratefully received. In use, it's a tad more techie than iAnti-Virus, but it's great if you want to scan files for Windows threats before sending them onwards.
http://www.clamxav.com/


Alternative Free Firewall Software.

Outpost Firewall Free edition.
Agnitum's Outpost Free Edition offers the ideal combination of top protection and good user-friendliness
http://download.cnet.com/Agnitum-Outpost-Firewall-Free/3000-10435_4-10913746.html



Online Armour Personal Firewall.

Publisher Tall Emu's Online Armour firewall has been proved very efficient in tests, even outperforming some big-name commercial equivalents. It's light on resources, and heavy on security, so well worth checking out.

http://download.cnet.com/Online-Armor-Personal-Firewall/3000-10435_4-10426782.html


Comodo Personal Firewall.

It's totally free to use but you will need to register and activate the licence by e-mail within 30 days of installation. Whilst Comodo outperforms many similar offerings, it can be pretty intrusive, especially if you just want a firewall that does it's job no questions asked. Tech support is available via email, but not by phone.

http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/index.html


Boasting awards aplenty, EMSI Software's A-squared free edition lacks the background scanning facilities of its commercial big brother, Anti-Malware, yet still packs in almost all its most useful functions. It's user-friendly with daily auto-updates, and has received excellent user feedback. Thanks to bazzlad for posting it in the forum discussion.

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/


Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware free edition.

Whilst the free version doesn't provide real-time protection or scheduled updates, Anti-Malware is still powerful enough to make a big difference

http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html


Ad Aware 8 free edition.

Ad Aware's great at detecting and removing malware, and this version works even faster than previous ones.

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-2008/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?tag=lst-1&cdlPid=10844457


Spybot - Search & Destroy.

Spybot's been going for a while, and while it has a pretty long list of features, it's always received mixed feedback.

http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html


Recovery programs
If you've already lost valuable files, there may still be some hope in the form of recovery programs. Freeware programs Restoration, http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html
Freeundelete http://www.download.com/FreeUndelete/3640-2248_4-10495642.html
 and PCinspector http://www.snapfiles.com/get/pcinspector.html
work to recover lost files, but as you may expect, it's a bit of a lottery as to whether they actually succeed.