9 Free Security Tools to Be Thankful For

by Brian Prince

Microsoft Security Essentials made its debut last year. The product is meant to be lightweight, but still comes armed with an anti-malware engine, anti-rootkit features and other functionality to fight threats targeting your computer.

Given the amount of malicious sites on the Web, it always helps to get an outside opinion on whether its a good idea to browse certain sites. This isnt fool-proof, as new malicious sites are created frequently and otherwise legitimate sites can be compromised. Still, by using McAfee SiteAdvisor, users can get a sense of whether what theyre about to go to is a known malicious site.

AVG Technologies is known for offering a free version of its antivirus software. However, the company also offers free versions of AVG LinkScanner for Windows and Mac to help sniff out malicious sites. In addition, AVG recently moved to buy DroidSecurity, which offers free antivirus software for mobile devices running Google Android.

Panda Security released Panda Cloud Antivirus in 2009. The product includes antivirus, anti-spyware and anti-rootkit features, as well as behavioral-based blocking of new threats and URL filtering.

Comodo System-Cleaner offers a deep cleaning of files and registry entries on Windows machines. With the SafeDelete feature, users can back up critical files before cleaning.

Trend Micro Browser Guard is a plug-in for Internet Explorer running on Windows. It works by analyzing and blocking malicious JavaScript, and communicates with the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network.

Avira is another longtime player in the world of freeware. AntiVir Personal is free, and scans disks from malware, including rootkits, as well as adware.

The NoScript extension is often used as an additional layer of protection for Firefox, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers. NoScript protects against cross-site scripting attacks and allows JavaScript, Java, Flash and other plug-ins to only be executed by Websites approved by the user.

Avasts free software includes protection against spyware and viruses. The freeware version of its software is available for Windows and Linux users.