Computerworld put out a call for the 10 best free security tools available today. Here’s the list:
Secunia Personal Software Inspector
(PSI) scans your PC, downloads a current vulnerabilities file, and alerts you to any software on your machine that is missing security patches. It also warns you if any software is out of date and no longer supported by the vendor.
SendShield (beta)
Whenever you send PowerPoint, Excel or Word documents via Outlook, it examines them to
see if they have any of private information. It then details what it finds and lets you remove the information with a single click. It deletes the information only from the copy of the file you send via e-mail, not the original on your hard disk.
Avast Antivirus
It’s lightweight and takes up barely any RAM or system resources, it’s simple to use, and it’ll do everything you need by providing live, resident protection as well as canning. The independent testing site AV-comparatives.org rates its effectiveness as Advanced+, the top level.
HijackThis
Everybody should be using spyware-detection tools such as Lavasoft Ad-Aware or Spybot Search & Destroy — preferably both. But some malware is so nasty that it escapes detection from any spyware scanners — and can’t be removed by them, either. The program examines your settings and the Windows registry, particularly those sections that are most likely to be vulnerable, and then saves all those settings in a log file. Those settings are the key to finding out if you’ve been infected.
SpywareBlaster
It stops the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, browser hijackers and other malware, and can also block spyware cookies. It includes extras as well, such as disabling Flash running in Internet Explorer. And it also lets you create a system snapshot, so that if at some later point you get infected with spyware, you can always revert to a clean system.
F-Secure BlackLight Rootkit Eliminator
It scans your PC for hidden processes, folders and files, then reports on what it finds. If your PC is clean, it will tell you so. If it finds anything hidden, it tells you that as well and lets you clean it up.
NoScript
A great Firefox extension called NoScript, which not only blocks scripts, plug-ins and various types of code, but also protects against cross-site scripting attacks. It lets you block scripts, plug-ins, and code on a site-by-site basis.
Comodo Firewall Pro
There are plenty of free firewalls out there, but my favorite is Comodo Firewall Pro, which provides top-notch protection from both inbound and outbound threats. It offers other types of protection as well, including what it calls Defense+, which keeps you safe in several ways, including locking down certain files and folders so that they can’t be altered. Another very good free firewall is Online Armor.
McAfee SiteAdvisor
When you do a search in Google or Yahoo, it places a small icon to the right of each search result, indicating whether the site is safe, questionable or known to be harmful. A red X indicates danger, a green check indicates the site is safe, and a yellow exclamation mark indicates that it’s questionable.
CCleaner
CCleaner gets rid of many different kinds of unneeded files, such as temporary files, Windows log files, chkdsk file fragments and a lot more. It can also check your Registry and clean it of bad or broken entries and help you stop programs from running on start-up.