Kit your PC out for free: No cost anti-virus software Discussion Area

MSE_Martin

Just a quick note on the mention of Open Office.... originally I had office and other software in there too. Then the article was too long and i cut them out and am going to do a new 'other software types' articles

Jimvin

If you want a belt and braces approach consider installing ClamAV, a completely free virus scanner.

http://www.clamwin.com/

It does NOT offer real-time protection, you need to run it manually but this means that it should not interfere with your existing anti-virus solution.

Regards,
Jim

Beanz

Hey everyone.

I thought I'd throw in my two cents on this :-)

Take a look at the Neowin Freeware Alternative List. It is a community maintained list of freeware alternatives for loads of applications - not just AV/AS etc.

I've found it to be very useful so thought I'd share :-)

Oh and for the geeks amongst us, the main Neowin site is an excellent news site/community forum.

Danny

Spurnblat

great article - i've been using AVG Free for a year now and almost got caught by their payment warnings. i've upgraded to 7.5 now and added AVG Anti-Spyware as well.

if you're looking for a good spam filter plugin for Microsoft Outlook i've been using a program called SpamBayes for a year and i've been very impressed. it ties in directly to Outlook and gives every incoming message a spam percentage. you can set a threshold to say that anything above a certain percentage gets automatically moved to a spam folder (i'm currently using 50%). you can also set a threshold to say that anything above a certain percentage gets automatically moved to an "uncertain" folder (i'm currently using 10%).

if spam ends up in your inbox there's a nice big button called "Delete as Spam" which sends the message to the spam folder and helps SpamBayes learn what you don't want to read. you just need to check the "uncertain" folder every few days to manually classify those messages as either spam or ham. over the last few months i haven't had any real messages sent to the spam folder and only a few sent to the "uncertain" folder. i do get the occasional piece of spam in my inbox but overall i've been very impressed!

the program is a SourceForge project to it's a little more techie than some of the others listed which might make computer novices slightly nervous. their homepage is at http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/ or you can go directly to the Outlook plugin download at http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/windows.html. it works on Windows98 and above and Outlook 2000 and above. it does NOT work with Outlook Express.

Beanz

The spam filters on Google Mail are excellent too. Google Mail is invite only so if anyone wants an invite to open an account drop me a mail.

FYI, Google Mail can be used with Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook etc. It isn't web only.

Danny

jim1956_2

Another couple of good free anti virus / spyware are - CLAMWIN for antivirus small but very effective. And for adware etc the best I find at the moment is SUPERANTISPYWARE.

As we all know nothing gets every thing but AVG and SUPERANTISPYWARE are a good combination.

nethesi

Hi All,

been a lurker on this site for about a year, but 1st post so be gentle.:o

I work for a computer company and so don't have to use free software at home, however one bit of info you might not know (certainly wasn't in Martin's very good article) is that there is a particluar type of malware which hides from AV software. If you have always had 100% up to daye AV software you don't need to worry as good software will detect it before it's installed. However if you have any suspicion the I definately recommend the following.

http://www.sophos.com/products/free-tools/sophos-anti-rootkit.html

Sophos is one of the big 4 AV, anti spam etc companies, but doesn't sell to consumers. This is a free tool: I've used it and didn't have to register. Like other free products I think i's a combination of a PR exercise and convenient for their big customers.
No tech support for non customers though except via webssite.

It is easy to uninstall once you've finished with it.

best wishes all, hope this helps someone,

Rachel

Nosmig

New article is good - lots of good guidance - thnaks.

I've found that AVG Free (inc the updated 7.5) is fine and Zone Alarm (free) works well for me.

For anti-spam, I use a free service called SPAMJAB - (https://www.spamjab.com) which is superb. It also doubles as webmail so it's ideal to keep the mailbox clear of junk and, when away from home, to easily pick up messages via any Internet-connected PC.

gunnerfan

Do Registry Cleaners come under this thread. If so can anyone suggest a FREE cleaner that does the full job.

Beanz

Crap Cleaner - https://www.ccleaner.com

It's excellent, frees up space on your system too.

Danny