Like it or not, spyware and malware are here and probably always will be but we don’t have to spend lots of time cleaning it off our systems on a regular basis if we have a free anti-spyware toolkit at our disposal. This is exactly what we have put together, or at least our favorite ways to protect us against the elements of malware and spyware.<\/p>\n
Spybot Search and Destroy – Scanning Software<\/strong> http:\/\/www.safer-networking.org<\/a><\/p>\n No anti-spyware article would be complete without Spybot Search and Destroy. This freeware utility I have, like many of you, been using for years and it has done really well for me and probably most of you as well. If you haven’t had the chance to use it before, head over to their website to download it.<\/p>\n I highly recommend it and so do many other people that I come across that have used it before. Spybot has both scanning features and protective features to protect again new threats. It’s more advanced and is more geared towards administrators, so I wouldn’t put it on grandma’s PC for her to use.<\/p>\n Lavasoft Ad-Aware – Scanning Software<\/strong><\/p>\n This product comes to us from Lavasoft, which also has a paid-for version of Ad-Aware. The free version seems to work just fine, and I like to run it side-by-side with Spybot every so often. It’s great to get a second opinion at the doctor’s office, as is with anti-spyware – just to make sure nothing is left behind from either of the two scanning software.<\/p>\n Microsoft Windows Defender<\/a> – Realtime Detection Windows Defender is software that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software by detecting and removing known spyware from your computer. This is the main reason I like it. It’s also decent at finding and removing spyware already on the system, but for a good cleaning, I still recommend Spybot.<\/p>\n AVG Free Anti-virus – Realtime Detection <\/strong>http:\/\/free.avg.com<\/a><\/p>\n Let’s be real – spyware and malware go hand and hand usually with viruses and trojans. If you have one or the other, chances are you might have both. Therefore, to protect ourselves from the elements we need to have a good anti-virus running on our system and I chose AVG because it’s free, lightweight, and easy to use.<\/p>\n I’ve been running it for years without any problems at all – it’s found some nasty things along the way as well – which is good because it reminds me that it’s always working hard in the background for me. So, protect yourself from the nasties out there and grab a copy of AVG. You can also visit Microsoft.com<\/a> for a list of anti-virus partners for the Windows version that you are running.<\/p>\nWindows Defender<\/h3>\n
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\nYeah, you probably didn’t think a Microsoft product would have been in this article, but this product I actually like – especially for the less technical users like Grandma.<\/p>\n