Protect Your PC for Free

It was suggested back at the May meeting that, being the tech guy that I am, I might offer up some advice on free antivirus software. Ahem, better late than never, right?

A few basics for the nontechnical. You must have antivirus (AV) software on your PC if you connect to the Internet, period (I’m assuming PC users here – if you’re in the cult of Mac you’re on your own, but I’d urge you to do more than rely on Mac OS’s supposedly invulnerable nature). I’m not talking about the trial AV software that came loaded on your machine four years ago and hasn’t downloaded an update since before Obama took office. AV software that isn’t up-to-the-minute updated is essentially useless.

Now, you could buy AV software, and pay each year to renew the subscription to updates. Norton and McAfee are the big players here. Be my guest. They’re both competent in terms of protection, though I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about how they take over your computer in the name of security and cause a multitude of issues by themselves. Or, you can download some free AV software. In this case, you seem to get more than what you pay for. The “free” AV products are actually commercial, so if you’re deploying one across an enterprise, you have to pay for it. But they’re free for “personal use,” presumably to build market share and name recognition.

I’m a fan of Avast (www.avast.com). I’ve used it for years without a single infection. (An aside: unless you’re highly tech-savvy, don’t expect to know your machine is infected. Modern viruses aren’t designed to crash computers or delete files. They do more insidious things like quietly forward your passwords and bank details to career criminals.) Install it, let it update itself automagically, and you should be fine. It doesn’t slow down your PC, and it’s very stable. Once in a while you have to check into the Avast website to renew your free subscription, and that’s it.

Other people swear by AVG (free.avg.com). I don’t have personal experience with this one, but if Avast rubs you the wrong way or doesn’t agree with your computer, it should be a good alternative.

And while we’re on the subject of protecting your PC for free, you might want to think about a firewall. A firewall isn’t quite as essential as AV software, and Windows XP and Vista have basic firewalling built in, so you might just want to stick with that. However, those integrated firewalls only block potentially nasty connection coming from outside the system. If you’re concerned about what’s already on your system calling out (and if you engage in any high risk activity like pulling apps off P2P networks, you should be), a more full featured firewall will notify you and let you control what apps on your computer can reach out to the Internet (for example, in order to send your personal details off to some evildoer). Do note that firewalls sometimes cause problems with P2P programs and local file and printer sharing.

The industry standby is ZoneAlarm. I provide it directly because they make it difficult to find on their site: the company is all about getting you to upgrade to a paid version that’s supposedly so much better. As such, you really need to read before clicking things during install and updates, because they make it very easy to accidentally trade up to a paid or trial version of a paid product.

I use COMODO Firewall, which works well but is a little less user-friendly than ZoneAlarm. I had to switch because ZoneAlarm didn’t support the new version of Vista my latest laptop came with.

When you first install a firewall, you’ll be bombarded with permission requests from your usual Internet applications like your web browser and email program. But once the firewall “learns” what to let through, it should do its work quietly.

And there you have it: computer security without spending a dime (or ten centimes, or 10p, as your case may be).