Twitter Ye Not… Robin

It seems that the Twitter phenomina was silenced at least for most of the day yesterday.

I like many others couldn’t twitter, apparently the twitter servers were a victim of a DDOS attack. The hackers saw fit to silence the bird.

ItÂ just goes to prove, that no computer system is safe from the hackers, and you must, must, must keep your own virus checkers up to date, and have a decent firewall (not the one that comes with Microsft Vista, it only blocks inbound traffic).

So here is my 10 Sheckels worth on some useful free software to help with your computers security:

There are plenty of decent free programs out there that together can enhance your secuirity and keep you machine safe from prying eyes:-

1. Avast Home Edition Free Antivirus – AVG Free was my usual free virus checker recommendation, but I had a spate of customers getting viruses, and AVG failed to sort it out. I now always recommend Avast Antivirus, the interface on the free version is a little quirky, but it does the job. The main advantage Avast has over AVG is if it detects a virus in memory, it will offer to do a boot time scan. When the machine next boots, it will do a full virus scan early in the boot up sequence of your computer. This gives a virus little chance of loading, and is useful whenÂ a virus keeps files in use. Avast has over 80 million users.

2. Comodo Firewall Free Edition – The firewall that comes free with Windows Vista only blocks traffic coming in, not going out. A better solution is Comodo Firewall. Like all good firewall software, there is a period when it has to learn with your help what traffic is allowed, and what is not. This can be annoying at first, but after a few days things settle down. The install program, comes with a firewall & antivrus program. I prefer not to install the antivirus portion of this software.

3. Spybot Search and Destroy – Another great free product, that doesn’tÂ even have a paid for version. The whole software development is fundedÂ by donations. Excellent program that getsÂ rid ofÂ spyware. Spybot-S&D was awarded with the Forte downloads 5 star award award in the year 2008

4.Â SuperAntiSpyware Free – Bit of a cross breed this one, gets rid of Spyware, Adware and Removes Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, HiJackers, Parasites, Rootkits, Rogue Security Products (phew). Their tag lineÂ is “Remove ALL theÂ spyware, not just theÂ easy ones”. So as you can imagine, I use thisÂ to get rid of some of the tricker viruses and spyware. The free versionÂ doesn’t have a Real-Time BlockingÂ Â option, which means you have to do a manual scan each time.Â Superantispyware has over 12 million users worldwide and detects & removes over 1,000,000 threats.

5. Spamfighter Free – Not really security as such, but going through tons of spam each day can be time consuming, and just plain annoying. This program works for Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, and Mozilla Thunderbird. The program learns as it goes along what is spam & what’s not. It’s used by more than 6 million happy users around the world

UPDATE:

6. Malwarebytes - This has become so good lately I’ve had to include it in my list. One of THE best free programs for removing Spyware and some viruses.

Hopefully this post has helped you, why not post a comment?

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Tags: Antivirus Avg, Avast, Avg Free, Better Solution, Boot Time, Boots, Checkers, Comodo Firewall, Computer System, Ddos Attack, Dos Attack, Firewall, Firewall Software, Free Antivirus, Free Recommendation, Free Version, Free Virus Checker, Hackers, Inbound Traffic, Little Chance, Phenomina, Prying Eyes, Servers, Spate, Spybot, Star Award, Twitter, Useful Free Software, Virus, Viruses

August 7th, 2009 | Blog

13 Responses to “Twitter Ye Not… Robin”

Huddson Lee says:

August 7, 2009 at 11:05 pm

I use Avast and Super Antispyware too.

I’d rate Avast higher than Norton as it detected a few trojan horses that Norton didn’t. I always do the “thorough” scan although it takes a long time but it does scan the heck of my harddrive to protect my computer.

Huddson
Huddson LeeÂ´s last blog ..How To Use Google Analyticator

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Rob says:

August 8, 2009 at 9:29 am

Huddson,

Norton was the daddy a good few versions ago, but became old & bloated. You needed an awesome computer to run it, it slowed most of my customers machines dooowwwwn.

This seems to be have been sorted now, but I still like you rate Avast the best.

I’ve only touched the surface here, perhaps in a future post I can look at some more must have programs.

Any other programs you absolutely swear by?

Keep in touch

Rob
RobÂ´s last blog ..Email Goof-Up, or Donâ€™t Diss Your Customers

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Richard Darby says:

August 8, 2009 at 9:38 am

Thanks for the advice ….finding free anti virus always seems to be a minefield.
I will sign up for one of the above.

Hope alls going well on the course,

richard
Richard DarbyÂ´s last blog ..Traffic or List Building

Reply
- Robbo says:
  
  August 8, 2009 at 10:58 am
  
  Hi Richard
  
  The only program in my list that can be truly classed as a virus program is Avast. If you are looking for a virus program that’s the one you definately need. The others are excellent but are programs that you would run if you think you may have a problem.
  
  Keep in touch
  
  Rob
  
  Reply
Paul Wilson says:

August 9, 2009 at 1:32 am

Hey Robin

Some great recommendations there…thanks!

I do begrudge spending money with the big boys when there is so much out there for free I will bear these in mind!

A great post!

Talk soon,

Paul
Paul WilsonÂ´s last blog ..What more video?

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robinclapworthy's answers on Yedda - People. Sharing. Knowledge. says:

September 6, 2009 at 6:13 pm

Yedda: RE: How to remove adware.win32, i cant download any ……

robinclapworthy answered: re:how to remove adware.win32, i cant download any thing from the internet to fix the problem …

Reply
- robinary says:
  
  September 6, 2009 at 7:47 pm
  
  Hi Trevor
  
  Thank’s for dropping by. Pleasure helping you, I’m sure you can return the favour when I need it.
  
  Cheers mate
  
  Rob
  
  Reply
[Blocked by CFC] Raj Rafsan says:

January 10, 2010 at 6:18 pm

Are there any new companies developing antivirus firewall solutions? The old ones are not that good

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[Blocked by CFC] Andrew Grayson says:

January 19, 2010 at 3:59 am

Hey, this is my first visit to your blog… We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us valuable information to work on. good job

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[Blocked by CFC] Johnathan Simar says:

January 23, 2010 at 5:58 pm

Thanks for this cool post. Anyway i found your blog on google and find it very useful. I’ll be sure to come back again for more!

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[Blocked by CFC] united health says:

February 18, 2010 at 7:01 pm

If all government agencies were required to purchase only software which was more resistant to hacking, vendors would make this a priority. The rest of us could then buy it from the same sources. I’ve been in this security business for a long time. If one were to believe that it is realistically possible to block all net traffic from China, then they don’t understand how easy it would be for hackers there (or anywhere) to spoof network addresses and appear to be somewhere else in the world.

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Don’t get caught like I did, use these tools to keep your computer safe | robinclapworthy.com says:

February 18, 2010 at 10:27 pm

[...] did an importantÂ post on this blog a few months ago about the importance of having a decent virus checker, spyware [...]

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[Blocked by CFC] Free Anti-Virus says:

February 22, 2010 at 1:33 pm

I really liked reading this post. I will be coming back to browse more fascinating views. With thanks.

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