The table below is not recommending products and if you choose to use
one or more of them you are doing so at your own risk and I strongly recommend
that you seek professional advice about the applicability to your own
circumstances - technical, legal and commercial prior to downloading.
As almost all of this software will interact with Windows® at an intimate
level I would also recommend that you take a full system backup with a
product such as Norton Ghost 2003 (DOS!) prior
to installing any one of them.
This page © Business before Technology
2006-2010 - see the respective sites of the owners
for their copyright statements as well as terms and conditions
|
| Name of tool and brief description
| When and how to run and VERY IMPORTANT
comments regarding INSTALLATION
| Download page and 'likely' conditions of use*¹
|
Belarc Advisor - creates a report showing the hardware and
software installed on your PC.
Also produces a summary of Windows Updates.
Very useful first step in problem diagnosis.
| Run manually before and after any software or hardware change.
Always e-mail to a friend or to me (at
send Belarc Report to Brian R.
)
if appropriate - there is no charge
for filing and/or retrieval.
Running this BEFORE you have a problem is highly recommended!
| Free for personal use
(Belarc)
|
Comodo Free - inhibits interactions between your PC and
millions of other PCs / servers trying to attack it.
Necessary even if you enable the XP firewall because the latter
lacks (Nov'07) outbound monitoring / protection.
| Must! be (auto-)run at PC startup*²
on any PC which is connected to any network.
Zonealarm is only recommended if you run a free, old (2005ish) version
which doesn't bundle (Kaspersky?) AntiVirus with it.
**Opt-Out**
| Free for personal (and commercial!) use
(Comodo Free)
|
AVG Anti-virus 8.5 - scans e-mails and files for malware such as
Viruses, Trojans etc.
This now includes the first of:
AVG (aka Ewido) Anti-Spyware - scans for more malware - not
just Viruses, Trojans etc., also cookies etc.
AVG Anti-Rootkit - scans disks for hidden files that
can run as Viruses, Trojans etc.
| Must be (auto-)run at PC startup*² on any PC which accesses
e-mails or files from other PCs.
Updates itself automatically (& fast) when online.
If you want to opt-out of the (2) ToolBars, the Link Scanner and
the SafeSearch features then you will need to choose 'Customised' installation
and uncheck each feature.
**Opt-Out**
| Free for personal use, all from AVG*³,
Rootkit detector (not tested by us!)
If link above fails (out of date?) start
here.
Be aware you'll be offered the paid version on
each page you visit.
|
The MS Sysinternals tool: psexec (replaces
Drop My Rights) - launches applications as a
limited user rather than the Administrator...
See the example at the very bottom of the (linked) page:
To run Internet Explorer with limited-user privileges use:
psexec -l -d "c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe"
| This tool runs programs such as Internet Explorer
and Outlook Express (and crucially programs launched by them!)
in a much safer manner by restricting their ability to
make changes to your (XP only!) system.
Bear in mind that they CAN STILL DO HARM to YOUr data.
Also be aware that Hackers will be 'fighting' this approach to running programs.
| Free for all? users - only 20-30 lines of code! *³
|
MS Defender - scans (and protects) parts of Windows that
Microsoft left open to attack when 'rushing' to market.
| Updated as part of Windows update. Schedule a weekly or even daily scan.
Also runs 'in realtime' to monitor potential attacks to Windows XP®
| Free for Genuine Windows Users
(MS Defender) *³
|
MS Malware remover - scans for known threats in a similar way
to other Anti-Spyware / Anti-Virus but has the advantage that the actions it
takes are in code written by MS and may do any 'removals' better than non-MS.
| Updated and run as part of Windows update.
Run other manual scans after this one even if only once per month (2nd Tuesday?).
| Free for Windows Users
(MS Malware remover) *³
|
| Tools that can supplement the above without
conflicting with them and/or Windows®.
|
AdAware - detects and attempts to remove Spyware.
Used to be paranoid about (tracking) cookies but otherwise useful.
| Free version needs to be updated and run manually. Do so weekly
or at least monthly.
**Opt-Out**
| Free for personal use
(AdAware)
|
SpyBot - detects and attempts to remove Spyware.
Paranoic about (tracking) cookies but otherwise useful.
| Free version needs to be updated and run manually. Do so weekly
or at least monthly.
**Opt-Out** The Tea-Timer option is not one we would take
| Free for personal use
(Spy Bot)
|
MailWasher - allows you to PRE-PROCESS your InBox.
Even on Broadband this is useful on any 'Spammy' account.
| Run prior to each opening of your InBox with your e-mail client
(e.g. Outlook / Express).
Often you won't need to do the latter at all!
| Free for personal use
(MailWasher)
|
Google Mail - allows you to have an on-line (WebMail) InBox
which is relatively free of xxxxx Spam.
Our observations of the Spam filtering is that it traps over 95% and has
very low false positives which are a fundamental weakness of any
content or blacklist-oriented filtering system.
| Although primarily offered as a WebMail tool it IS POSSIBLE to
retrieve NON-SPAM e-mails from your GoogleMail account with Outlook Express.
This is very useful because it keeps Spam e-mails in your (on-line!)
Spam folder for 30 days (over 5GB of storage!) and thus a clean Inbox in Outlook.
| Free for personal use
(Google Mail)
|
| Applications that replace
those bundled with Windows®.
|
FireFox - Modern browser with extensions.
Doesn't support Active-X at all (that's GOOD!) so inherently safer than MS IE.
| Use for all your browsing and should be your default browser.
MS IE needs to be retained for Windows Updates AND a small number of
sites that you need to protect - e.g. Financial, see Safe browsing in 2010
| Free for personal use
(Firefox)
|
Thunderbird - Modern e-mail client with extensions.
Doesn't support Active-X (that's GOOD!) - see Firefox.
| Can totally replace MS Outlook Express (Outlook non-Express
has more function) but not widely proven in all situations yet
| Free for personal use
(Thunderbird)
|
| The following tools are free, useful
and I have several customers that use them.
|
Foxit Reader provides a lightweight PDF reader without the
constant updates and bloated functionality which tries to take over your PC
provided by other vendors.
| Can replace Adobe Reader for at least 95% of users as of April'09
If you want to opt-out of the (2) ToolBars and other
features then you will need to choose 'Customised' installation
and uncheck each feature.
**Opt-Out**
|
Free for personal use
(Foxit PDF Reader)
|
Hamachi -
a facility to link PCs securely over the Web.
Microsoft's Netmeeting and Remote Assistance are both able to securely interact
between PCs using this tool.
| Although this facility can be used for a lot of other purposes
(e.g. sharing files between remote users) it's use to support
remote assistance between 'friends and relatives' is excellent.
| Free for personal use
(Hamachi)
|
| The following tools are not free but
are important in order to retain a resilient PC.
|
Norton Ghost 2003 backs up ALL of WINDOWS - i.e. the
C drive so that an untainted restore/recovery can be done.
Restoring to a new drive is possible with guidance.
Restoring to a new PC is usually possible but not trivial.
Your PC supplier MAY have included this when building it.
| This product is NOT FREE and may require a 1-off coaching session
- probably possible via remote assistance (XP) or even the telephone.
Included in this list for it's system (C:) backup ability
Should be run (1) soon after PC purchase but after initial customisation,
then only (2) prior to all significant hardware or software changes.
|
If not included with your PC it is
CHARGEABLE
(Ghost prices on Amazon)
|
This page © Business before Technology
2006-2010 - see the respective sites of the owners
for their copyright statements as well as terms and conditions
|
Some of the products above have options at installation which I normally
alter from the default for a variety of reasons including technical,
privacy, Spam avoidance etc.. I may be able to provide Remote Assistance
either PC to PC or telephone if appropriate.
*¹ please read the conditions of use on the actual download
site of the software provider as the definitive terms, my words are
a gross and by definition an out-of-date summary.
Also note that although I often recommend these tools, I cannot validate
their suitability to your technical, personal or commercial needs
without a review which would be a chargeable exercise.
*³ Doesn't work with Windows 95, 98, Millenium Edition (ME) et. al.
Links and other information last validated on 17th November 2007.
Please use the Contact us page to suggest any additions or revisions.
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