In many situations I find that free tools/applications perform just as well, or better, than paid tools and applications. Below is a list of free applications that I use on a regular basis.
Comodo Firewall
I switched to this firewall when I read reviews about how good it is. It is consistently one of the best performing software firewalls available. If you are used to another free software firewall, such as ZoneAlarm, you may be put off with the fact that it is more complex to use.
It includes a tool called Defense+, that helps keep you protected from malware by alerting you when an application makes a change to your system, such as file and registry changes.
Both Defense+ and the firewall portion of this tool are extremely configurable and can greatly increase the security of your system.
Avira AntiVir Personal
I had been using AVG for many years as my anti-virus application. While it was a good program, I wanted to see if there was something better I could install. I found it with Avira’s free anti-virus tool.
When comparing Avira and AVG, I found that Avira’s tool was smaller, and faster than AVG. Also, when I reviewed tests that organizations had posted online, Avira always performed better at finding malware than AVG.
One note about the software, is that each time you update the definitions an advertising window is displayed for their premium product. While there are ways to get rid of that message, I won’t go into details on how to do that here.
Sandboxie
I discovered this tool last year, and have been using it for many months. This is perhaps the single best security software find that I have every made. If you don’t download any other tool on this page, I do highly suggest you download and use this one.
When you surf the Internet, many sites may install malware onto your computer. This tool allows you to load up your web browser into a sandbox. Any files that are downloaded from the Internet are then stored in the sandbox, where they won’t impact your system – sort of like they are behind a security wall.
If malware does get installed onto your computer from a web site, you simply delete the contents of that sandbox and the malware is deleted. You are then back to a clean system. I don’t think it can get any easier than that.
For my review of Sandboxie, please read Protect Your Computer with Sandboxie.
Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI)
I recently install this application to help notify me when I need to update my software. In case you aren’t familiar with Secunia, the web site contains a huge database of thousands of application and records any vulnerabilities of each application.
This tool uses that information to alert you when you need to patch or upgrade an application that is installed on your system. It scans your system, and then checks specific files with the information that they have. From there you can determine which course of action you need to take to secure you system from outdated applications.
I haven’t used it for very long, but it does look promising.
