Must have freebie programs to protect and clean

[ne14t]

I was originally told about these two products when they were initally freeware and I was doing my A+ course my teacher mentioned them and I have used them with utter success to protect and clean my computer.  These two programs will keep your computer virus free and malware free so you dont get that slow feeling.

1.  AVG Anti-Virus, free version is still awesome! http://free.avg.com/ca-en/homepage

2. Spybot Search & Destroy, also still freeware there are builds for all OS http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

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[javatyger]

I personally use the following two pieces of software to protect my HP Mini I got from Rogers:

Avast! free Antivirus: http://www.avast.com/en-ca/free-antivirus-download

and

Windows Defender: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/defender/default.mspx

These two programs have been doing great for me since I got my HP Mini, and never had any issues whatsoever. Both run nicely in the background, never even notice them, except when Avast! does it's updates(which you get a woman's voice). Other then that, I use CCleaner to keep the system clean and that's it. The Mini runs smooth and never have had an issue.

[RogersErin]

@ne14t, @javatyger

Thank you for the recommendations!

[ne14t]

Your most welcome!

[Chris]

I also use Avast on all my non mac computers. It works great.. The voice telling you about updates is annoying but hey it's free!

[Browncoat]

Spybor S & D is great but sometimes the resident TeaTimer app can bog down a single-core machine.

Good places to go for Windoze users:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/

http://www.msfn.org/board/index

stick-in-the-mud W2kP users like me:

http://www.vorck.com/windows/

and if I really need a modern desktop without that activation nonsense I go Linux:

Startin with Mandriva, going to PCLinuxOS and Linux Mint{better than Ubuntu but uses the same repositories]

http://forum.mandriva.com/index.php?sid=dfe9a36cff20d9efcff8ce04dcac0894

http://www.osdisc.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi/products/linux

Keeping in mind that the upgrade path for Linux is the use of libraries/repositories kept on mirror sites,

unless you're really good with tarballs.

Remember, an OS is just a means to get your work done and it helps when Mozilla/Sun/Oracle has cross-platform apps.

[dnavia]

Avast is a great free AV.  Spybot is great for Spyware.  CCleaner is great for optimizing your system and getting rid of wasteful and unwanted files (i.e temp files). Recuva is useful for recovering deleted files.

[Carusk]

Trend Micro has a few nice tools

http://free.antivirus.com/clean-up-tools/

Rubotted, Rootkit Buster, 

and the essential HijackThis!

[Netbug]

I'm a big fan of MalwareBytes myself from http://www.malwarebytes.org. The AV I use on my Windows 7 machines is the Microsoft Security Essentials and I use the Rogers Online Protection on my XP machine (it's a vast improvement over the old Norton software Rogers used to provide, much less system intensive now).

The other programs mentioned in this thread I have also heard good things about.

[James · Accepted solution]

You also need to remember, if your using a router, be it external or built in with your modem, a software firewall is not needed. Experts say the hardware firewall (aka router) is far more efficient than any software firewall.

In terms of keeping the computer clean, personally I live by CCleaner as stated above. AVG is also good at detecting viruses and cleaning them.

[tandar]

I would still recommend a software firewall on your system. There is a vast difference between a stand alone hardware firewall, and the firewall built into a router.  While a router's firewall does offer a good amount of protection its mostly from inbound connections. It won't stop connections initiated by your system if it becomes infected with a virus, whereas a good software firewall will.

[James]

I suppose to each their own on this. So long as you have a good anti-virus and have it set to auto run once a week (or more often if you wish), all should be fine. The problem I found with firewalls was that they were hogs on the system, and for those who do not have gaming PCs, using that much RAM at all times is not a helpful thing at all.

[dnavia]

if you use windows 7, the built in firewall is just fine for the average user. I've used all the major firewalls (zonealarm etc..), and the win7 one is just fine for my use. between that and my router firewall I feel quite protected.

[ccrashh]

Avast and AVG have become massive resource hogs.  You might want to have a look at Avira.

Also, to protect your PC, try using Sandboxie.  It's a great tool and "...runs your programs in an isolated space which prevents them from making permanent changes to other programs and data in your computer."  Very handy. 

[Chris]

@ccrashh ahh I forgot about Sandboxie it was a nice program to isolate files you run if your not so sure about them. It's been a while since I used it but it was great when I did.