How much would you say you've spent on Antivirus, Anti Spyware and Firewall products? $150? $200? What if I told you that some of the best utilities for these purposes are absolutely free? Would you want to hear more? I thought you might.

I've been a PC Tech for the last 10 years. In that time I've run across just about every possible utility for these three purposes. I'm sure you've heard of Ad-aware and Norton Antivirus and some of you might even be aware of the Windows firewall that comes for free with Windows XP Service Pack 2. However, I'm not here to talk about those. As a matter of fact, in my opinion, none of those products are designed well enough for everyday use.

AntiVirus Software

I'll start with the AntiVirus software. While there are some good products out there that you can pay for, many of these products are a little bloated and overpriced in my opinion. Lets take Norton Antivirus for example. Norton has been around for a very long time. Overall as a virus scanner it does an OK job. However, I've personally seen occasions when Norton itself was actually infected with a virus! While this doesn't happen often, there are other drawbacks. Sometime the installation becomes corrupted or you want to uninstall it and you try to remove it only to find that you can't! The computer gives you some random error about the install.log being missing or corrupted and quite a few parts of the program are left on your computer.

The other thing I don't like about most mainstream antivirus products is that they really seem to slow down your PC. Especially if you are on a budget and are running a lower power processor like a Celeron or Sempron. In addition to that, they seem to take up more system resources than I would like. This makes doing everything on your computer slow. Many sub $500.00 PC's tend to have 256 megs of ram and then 64 megs of that is being used to run your video card. This can make using your PC very frustrating.

However, there is a beautiful program that does what all the big boys programs do. The best thing about this program besides being free, is that it isn't a resource hog, it completely uninstalls when you want it to and it updates on an almost daily basis. Updating is imperative as there are currenly over 30,000 viruses for windows PC's alone! There is no subscription fee and it will also scan your email.On top of all those benefits, it won't bog down your PC in order to protect you. Additionally, I have never gotten an marketing email or annoying regisration window in the years I've been using it. Ready for the name? AVG Antivirus. The free edition is awesome. Since I can't put links to outside websites in this guide, just do a google search for AVG Free edition. This little antivirus program is top drawer for being absolutely free and I can't praise it enough. Thanks AVG for watching out for us!

Spyware Removal- Updated! Microsoft Antispyware Beta is now Windows Defender

This utility is for Windows XP users only but it's free as well. Unlike virus software, Spyware removal software is not a mature technology. Spyware writers are way ahead of the game as not all types of spyware have been identified. However, this software, which was orginally written by a company named Giant software, and then purchased by Microsoft, has the best spyware removal rate of any software out there. Windows Defender removes roughly 80% of all known spyware. While this is not an exceptionally high number consider that most spyware removal tools catch far, far less.

The best part of this software besides the fact that it is free is that it actively runs on your system like antivirus software does. It monitors your registry, your internet browser and gives you alerts on suspicous activty. As an added bonus you can contribute to the spyware removal community by automatically reporting the spyware it removes from your system. Installation is a snap and you can accept all the default options and be well protected. Some will disagree with me I'm sure, but compare a free utility such as Ad-Aware to Microsofts free offering and you will see what I mean. First, many of the users of Ad-Aware mistakenly believe that they can run the software once and they are all done. They couldn't be more wrong. Isn't it a pain to have to manually run spyware removal tools? Microsofts offering runs all the time and it actively catches attempts to put spyware on your machine instead of constantly having to run it manually. It also updates on its own and you can schedule a scan everyday to run when you aren't using the computer but the computer is on. Those reasons alone make Microsofts Windows Defender worth every penny. Oh wait, you didn't pay anything to begin with.

Firewalls

Way back in 1998 I ran across a very interesting page on the internet. The gentleman that was running the site was incredible. He predicted ( way back then ) that every computer would need a personal firewall and was actively petitioning Microsoft to not "fix" the TCP/IP stack. (this protocol is what allows computers to talk to each other over the internet and on networks) Microsoft in it's grand tradition had put an incomplete TCP/IP stack in Windows 98. This "mistake" didn't allow a whole host of TCP/IP based attacks to take place. He also knew that the popularity of broadband connections would increase 100 fold ( as it has) and this would open each user up to more danger from the internet. In response to this he created a free personal firewall call Zone Alarm. For many years Zone Alarm has been one of the most popular and complete firewalls out there. It's been widely acclaimed by Internet/PC professionals and you can still download a free version of it today. Again do a search for it and you can't miss it. When you go to install, it will ask you if you want the professional version free for 30 days or you can select the free version. Make sure to pay attention to this when installing. However, this is the one application of the three that I would recommend buying if you want a full firewall solution. However, the free one is awesome and does a 100% better job than the one that comes with Windows.

Why you need a firewall.

Why do you need a firewall? Well viruses, and spyware both can often put themselves on your machine and then attempt to contact a host out on the internet. This can be very bad. Here are some examples of just what they can do:

Turn your computer in to a zombie. This allows some one to remotely take control of your machine and possibly turn your computer into one of thousands of PCs that initate a denial of service attack (DOS)

Turn your computer into a file server without you knowing it. They can store illegal material on your machine and serve it up to other folks. The worst part of this could even be serving illegal porn. This can get you tangled up with the law in some cases.

Steal your identity. Do I need to say any more about this topic?

Firewalls like Zone Alarm monitor both incoming and outgoing traffic. When a program you haven't authorized makes an attempt to contact another computer on the internet, Zone Alarm pops up and asks you if its ok. In additon to that, it will provide additional help in the form of a link on the alert to help you decide what to do. This is a great feature since most of us aren't network administrators. In the beginning there are allot of pop ups because there are a ton of products you have installed  that you didn't even know were contacting the internet to begin with. In the end this allows you to save bandwidth and get all the speed you are already paying for from your connection.

Final Word

You may or may not know this but Microsoft has been promoting these types of utilities in a very big way. They recommend that you get and AntiVirus program a Spyware program and a Firewall. Just go to the Microsoft page and have a look. It's on several pages and you won't have to look very hard to find it. So in the end you can save money and keep yourself protected while enjoying the benefits of  the internet. Hey it's free and easy so what are you waiting for?

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