◥◣◢ Best Freeware Guide - Security ◣◢◤

----Security----

Best Anti-Spyware

A few stand out, mainly Spybot, Ad-Aware, Windows Defender, and Spyware Blaster. The first three are scanners each with their own special tools including realtime scanning, encrypted file deletion, and history erasor. Spyware Gaurd is more of a realtime scanner (Like Anti-Virus) of spyware while you're downloading. Spyware Blaster is different in not being a scanner, but prevents spyware from installing on your computer in the first place (Spybot includes a robust version of this). All four programs are recommended since each is not 100% efficient.

Spybot
Ad-Aware SE Personal
Windows Defender
SpywareGuard
Spyware Blaster



Best Anti-Virus

A few come to mind, but my favorite is AVG from Grisoft, which includes updates, real time scanner, and an email scanner. Another good one is AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic which includes many of the same features. Do keep in mind that free anti virus clients are not up to par with paid ones according to testings.

AVG
AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic



Best Firewall

My favorite by far is ZoneAlarm which is simple for begginers and contains a barrage of features for more advanced users. Another option is Sygate Personal Firewall includes all the same functions for the same price.

ZoneAlarm Free
Sygate Personal Firewall



Best Anti-Malware

Ewido really helps stop hijackers, spyware, worms, dialers, trojans, and keyloggers. It includes a great scanner and realtime scanner. Some features are disabled in the free version, including the realtime scanner, auto updates, self-protection, and memory scanning, but all these are included in the 15 day trial which can be reinstalled.

Ewdio



Best Diagnostic Tool

Ultimate Boot CD is an amazing bootable CD to restore a crashed computer and can fix it.

Ultimate Boot CD



Best Disk Cleaner

I couldn't believe my eyes after I ran CCleaner, it removed around 1.5 Gigs in unused application data and internet cach (Which I thought I removed through the disk cleaner). This truly amazing utility cleans out your computer safely and even scans and removes obselete registry data, speeding up your system. You might want to turn off cookie deletion if you save your passwords on forums and such.

CCleaner



Best File Deleter

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.

Eraser



Best File Encrypter

Three stand out, GNU Privacy Gaurd, TrueCrypt, and Blowfish Advanced CS. GNU is a full replacement of PGP that is totally command line based, and not for beginnners. On the other hand, Blowfish Advanced CS offers multiple algorithms, efficient data compression, and safe key handling for content protection. TrueCrypt can create virtual encrypted disks, can encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a device, such as USB flash drive, and provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password.

Blowfish Advanced CS
TrueCrypt
GNU Privacy Gaurd
Guide to GNU Privacy Gaurd



Best Md5 Checksum Creator/Checker

This open source utility is used to calculate the MD5 checksum of a file using L. Peter Deutsch's MD5 code. One of the most common uses is to make sure that a file that you have downloaded is not corrupt. Some websites post the MD5 checksum of a file on their download page. Once you have downloaded the file, use winMd5Sum to get the MD5 checksum of the file on your computer. Then make sure that the MD5 checksum from the web site is the same. If they are the same, then your file is exactly the same as the file on the website.

winMD5Sum



Best File Unlocker

Unlocker is an Windows Explorer extension allowing you with a simple right-click on a file or folder to get rid of error message such as error deleting file or folder, cannot delete folder: it's being used by another person or program.

Unlocker