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Computer Security Tools

March 21, 2008

It has been a meh day for blogging and the world of news and technology. I keep seeing the same questions posted by people everywhere I go like what do you do with hamburger, or what antivirus should I use, or do I have to use a firewall? Well it is obvious to me that some of those questions are quite applicable on this blog. Here goes my not so humble answer… it is never humble when you start off an opinion piece with “I think!”

Antivirus

Commercial vs Freeware: If you are a large corporation you may want to buy the commercial product simply because having a big name to blame when someone eventually gets past even you tightest security measures always makes you feel better. I put my money on quality freeware programs that are updated daily for the latest protection. if you are using them for commercially you are honor bound to pay for it, but it is still a lot cheaper than what you pay the other companies.
How many should I use? Just one
Which one do you use? AVG Free Edition

Firewall

The same thing applies for Commercial vs Freeware as it for Antivirus and will spyware.
How Many to use? Just one software based or they can get in the way of each other. For those with High Speed internet in the US (and probably elsewhere too) you will get a fine hardware firewall as part of your equipment package, but it is still advise able to get a separate one for each of your computers.
Which does Brad use? Comodo Firewall, but there are several other good ones out there for free. I like the ease of setup and how little effort it takes to keep it doing its thing quietly.

Anti Spyware.

We have covered free vs commercial already. Like antivirus and firewalls if you like a free product it isn’t bad taste to donate some money to the developers.
How Many? These you can have a couple of if you want, though they can get in each others way if they are constantly running.
Which does brad use? I use two I have a browser toolbar based one from Yahoo, my DSL provider. And I use AVG Anti-spyware. There are other good free ones available, but this updates in concurrence with my antivirus and saves me an occasional extra restart after major upgrades.

Other Tools

I use CCleaner utility which as its name stands for cleans up all the crap on your computer which can both slow down the computer’s performance and leave you vulnerable to attacks.
Defraggler is the best defrag tool I have ever used for free. There are better commercial versions but for as seldom as I have to do defrags or need to do them as fast as possible I am more than happy with this free version.
Recuva is a the best free file recovery tool I have ever use and honestly far superior to most expensive ones.