Essential free internet security software

An anti virus, an anti spy ware,a firewall and a site advisor or phishing filter. These softwares complement each other and work together to protect your computer from online annoyances and threats. You can have only one anti virus software on your computer because more than one anti virus software conflict with each other. You can use more than one anti spy wares if you want to. If you have windows xp on your computer then you can use the windows in built firewall in the control panel, or you can choose from the available free dedicated firewall programs.

Microsoft provides a Firewall in windowsXP sp2 which is good enough. If you are having a Geniune windows then you can download and install Windows Defender Antispyware from microsoft's website, which provides you real time scanner which is missing in all of the free antispywares. MS also provides an online scanning feature on their website windows One Live Care with 90 days free trial http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/default.htm

keep windows secure by getting all the latest updates from microsoft. Either turn Automatic Updates On, or Do it manually by clicking on Tools > Update option in Internet Explorer. Forefox users can also run windows update using IE Tab Plugin. Remember to check for Windows Critical Security Updates often.

If you are infected with a hard to remove Trojan, worm or virus then you can download free removal tools specifically created for removing them. You can find a list of such programs listed in Other free tools


Free Anti Virus Programs

Active Virus Shield

Active Virus Shield

AVAST home edition free anti virus for windows and linux

Avast antivirus

AVG free anti virus

AVG Antivirus

Avira AntiVir® Free PersonalEdition Classic

Avira Antivirus


BitDefender 8 Free Edition

Bit Defender

ClamWin Free Antivirus
(This is a GPLed, Open source Free Anti Virus, the only drawback currently is that it does not come with real time scanner. A good backup antivirus for those who are not content in having only one antivirus program on their pc)

ClamWin Antivirus

Comodo Free Antivirus
(this is in Beta Version at the time of writing, can be problematic. Check their site for details)
Comodo Antivirus





Free Anti Spyware Programs

spybot s&d anti spyware
Safer Networking

avg free antispyware
Free Grisoft

ad aware se free Antispyware
Lavasoft Antispyware

Arovax Free AntiSpyware 2.0.65
Arovax Antispyware

Super Antispyware Free Edition
SUPERAntiSpyware Free


Free Firewall Softwares


Comodo Free Firewall
Comodo Firewall

Sygate Personal Firewall by Simtel
Sygate Firewall

Zonealarm Free Firewall by Checkpoint
ZoneLabs Firewall


General purpose Temp files and Registry cleaning Softwares

CCleaner
ccleaner

Advanced Windows Care V2 Personal Free Edition
Advanced WindowsCare Personal


Free Anti Keylogger

for protection from keyloggers,a free and fully functional for unlimited use, but displays registration request, kind of nagware, press X to close the nag window. keylogger hunter 2.1
Styopkin



Site Advisors /Phishing Filters

-Free Site Advisor Plug In for Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers
Mcafee Site Advisor

(There has been several instances of Sites being categorized in Red zone by Site avisor. One such instance I have seen is the site for Free Download Manager. The program itself is not listed as harmful but their site is labelled Red, So keep in mind of such False Alarms, or Incorrect Categorizations while using Site Advisor)

-Using Google as a Site Advisor
If you are using Firefox, it has under Tools > options > Security
an option to choose between warning from a downloaded list of sites or Check asking Google about each site I visit. This works almost the same way as mcafee site advisor. But it works more in the background. Google prevents you by going to a potentially harmful site by displaying a warning on the page as you point your browser to the site. But does not categorize them in searches.

-Microsoft also has its own site advisor. When you choose to enable phishing filter in IE6 or in IE7, the requests to sites are checked against the database available and specific warnings are issued.

-Comodo Verification Engine
http://www.vengine.com/


Free Online Scanning and removal

BitDefender
BitDefender Online Scan

Trendmicro Housecall
Trend Micro HouseCall


Other Free Tools
(These are the tools that are created for removing hard to remove Trojans, worms and viruses. You need to know the exact name of the virus that has infected your computer to download removal tool for it. Some of the tools are of general nature, click on the link to read more about each tool)

Malicious software removal tool by microsoft
Malicious Software Removal Tool from Microsoft

Panda Quickremover
Panda QuickRemover Repair Utility

Mcaffee Stinger
McAfee Stinger Tool Download

Free Tool by Kaspersky
Free Virus Removal Tools from Kaspersky

Free Tools by Symantec
Trojan, worm, virus Removal Tools from Symantec

Free Tool from Avast
free worm removal tool from Avast

Free Tools from TrendMicro
CoolWebSearch Trojan Remover v2.19