padlockThere is an incredible amount of free software on the internet and unfortunately a fair bit of it is likely to cause more problems than they purport to fix. So I was thinking what I could write about when up popped my weekly reminder to run a particular scan … and so here I present my top 5 free security tools.

I present them in no particular order but hope they prove useful.

  1. Microsoft Baseline Security Advisor (MBSA). This tool has been around for years and is designed with admins in mind. Especially when you need to check a number of machines. However, it is just as useful for the individual and as it’s a small (less than 2Mb) download; easy to install and just as easy to run then I say get it. It’s a quick way of seeing if the machine is in need of any patches or updates – certainly quicker than plowing through windows update!
  2. Secunia’s Personal Software Inspector (PSI). This will do for all your applications (whether MS or not) what MBSA doesn’t. So if you don’t want to run MBSA, then grab PSI and let the one tool alert you to both system issues and application issues. Personally I run both.
  3. This is a twofer – a 2 for 1 as I’m a fan of both Tall Emu’s Online Armor firewall or Comodo’s Personal Firewall.
    So why these two? Well both get regular good reviews though Tall Emu’s free version falls slightly below par to its paid for version. However, my main like of these two are the intelligent way they deal with popups and the like. I have a friend who has named another firewall “fearwall” because of its awesome number of popups every time you do anything. Want to know my favourite site for checking on firewalls? Then look no further than: Matousec.com – you may be surprised by how badly your current firewall fares.
  4. Another twofer, but this time with Anti-Virus. In this category it is either AVG or AVAST. Both offer free versions and both do well in the regular Virus Bulletin tests. I have no personal favourite but have found that in any given circumstance one will work better on one setup but won’t on what appears to be an almost identical one. Personally I usually** run with AVG but have nothing against AVAST either.** at the moment I am running  BitDefender’s Internet Security 2010. Although this isn’t free I won a free 1yr license and at the time it was one of a very few that worked with Windows 7. I don’t usually like all in one tools but so far it has served me well.
  5. And finally, I am a big fan of SUPERAntiSpyware. This has found stuff that many other vendors simply can’t or won’t. Second it has cleaned every infection, every time I’ve had to use it in anger on friends and family PCs. It sits in the background and will remind you it needs to do a scan but the free version has two minor downsides. First it doesn’t do real time checking – you have to fire it up and secondly it doesn’t auto-update its own database. You have to remember to do so, but it will helpfully remind you that you might need to. If you want the automated options then it will cost you $30 – however I advise waiting as frequently (after a scan) it will offer you a “Today only offer” to purchase the full version for $10.

There are many other tools I like and use, but the 5 (or 7 I guess) are the ones I rely on most.

Do you have preferred favourites that are different to mine?

If so do tell me what and why?

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