Free Software - Security and Cleaning
Reviews and ratings of quality, hand-picked, websites
CCCleaner 
• www.ccleaner.com
This is an excellent freeware cleaner for windows. It will do all the usual things - clean up the registry, remove temporary files, recycle bin etc and will also clean out IE, Firefox and Opera files that you don't want. Very good. This is freeware but if you decide to donate (optional) you will be emailed all new releases before they are available on the site.
Platform: Windows
WinPatrol
• www.winpatrol.com
WinPatrol detects new programs loaded onto your computer and asks you if you want to accept the program or not. It is a great means of defence against "backdoor" programs - programs that install themselves on your computer without your knowledge. You can also check through your existing start up programs to see if you want to keep them or not.
Ultra Defragementer
• http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net
Very fast open source defragmenter for windows. And very easy to use.
Platforms: Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003,Windows Vista and all of the 64-bit editions of Windows.
AVG Anti Virus Free Edition
• http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
AVG Free Edition is for private, non-commercial, single-home computer use only. The free edition gives you anti-virus scanning engine, automatic virus updates and automatic internet detection.
This free edition is funded by AVG Pro.
See also the AVG Anti-Rootkit Free and AVG Anti-Spyware Free
Comodo Antivirus
• http://antivirus.comodo.com
100% free antivirus programl with free updates. Includes on demand and on access scanning, email scanning, process monitoring, worm blocking and host intrusion prevention. Comodo is a leading IT company with offices in the US, UK, Ukrain and India.
Platform: Windows
Click here to see all Comodo free products:
Comodo Firewall
Comodo Verification Engine
Comodo Anti-Malware
Comodo AntiSpam
Comodo AntiVirus
Comodo iVault
Comodo BackUp
Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic
• www.free-av.com
Free anti virus protection for private use only.
Avira offers three anti virus solutions. The free edition offers the following features:
Protection against viruses, worms and Trojans
Protection against expensive dialers and phishing
Detects and deletes rootkits
Platform: Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris
Avast! 4 Home Edition
• www.avast.com
Free anti-spyware & anti-rootkit for Windows (private use only)
Avast! offers several anti virus products and the Home Edition is free for non commercial use. Updates are automatic. Available in over 30 language versions.
Platform: Windows
Comodo
• www.personalfirewall.comodo.com
100% free firewall with free updates. They also show plenty of tests that it has passed plus it has won awards from the likes of PC Magazine.
Platform: Windows
Click here to see all Comodo free products:
Comodo Firewall
Comodo Verification Engine
Comodo Anti-Malware
Comodo AntiSpam
Comodo AntiVirus
Comodo iVault
Comodo BackUp
Ad-Aware 
• www.lavasoftusa.com
Ad-aware Standard Edition is a free program from Lavasoft that scans your system for tracking components, i.e. spyware, and gives you the option of removing it. You can download Ad-aware, either by clicking the Download.com link on Lavasoft, or by going there directly from here. Unless you go for one of Lavasoft's paid packages, do remember to scan your computer regularly for spyware and also to update Ad-aware. Its free, so why not?
Platforms: Windows
Spybot - Search & Destroy
• www.spybot.info
Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer, including adware and spyware, dialers, keyloggers and trojan. Amongst many other features, it can also remove usage tracks.
Free, but please donate it you can.
Platforms: Most windows operating systems. Linux and Mac not supported.
Sandboxie
• www.sandboxie.com
Sandboxie is different from Adaware or Spybot in that it creates a "sandbox", a temporary storage area. Any information that would normally be written to the hard disk ges written instead to the sandbox and never makes it to the hard disk. Not useful for many programs you use, but great to run the program with a web browser because you can be sure that a website cannot write any unsolicited directly to your hard disk. Fast download and quick install.
Sandboxie is free but if you like it why not register your copy for a small fee? Even software developers have to eat!
ZoneAlarm
• http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp
Program Type: Firewall
Zone Labs do several firewall and anti virus programs. The free one (just called Zonealarm) is a basic protection from hackers, making your computer invisible on the net. ZoneAlarm is free for individual and not-for-profit charitable entity use (excluding governmental entities and educational institutions).
Platform: Windows
Fresh Devices
• www.freshdevices.com
There are 4 free programs on offer from Fresh Devices:
Fresh Download which is a download manager
Fresh Diagnose, a diagnostic utility that can analyse and benchmark you system
Fresh UI, a tweaking tools for optimising windows
Fresh View is a multimedia bowser that allows you to orgainize all your media files.
Free for personal/private use.
Abexo Free Registry Cleaner
• www.abexo.com
Program Type: Registry Cleaner
This is the lite version of Abexo's Registry Cleaner. It can back up your registry, clean the resistry. You can also restore from any of the backups you make.
Eusing Free Registry Cleaner
• www.eusing.com
Program Type: Registry Cleaner
Clean and repair your registry quickly and easily.
This is freeware but they would appreciate a donation.
RegSeeker
• www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm
Program Type: Registry Cleaner
Registry cleaner plus you can display various information such as startup entries, several histories, installed applications and more. You can also search for any item inside your registry, export/delete the results, open them in the registry - this last feature is very useful and enabled me finally to get rid of an incredibly irritating program (Jyve) that simply would not go away! This program is part of a suite of freeware programs from the makers of Hoverdesk.
MailWasher Free
• www.mailwasher.net
Program Type: Free Anti Spam Software
A free spam filter for email. This particular software will only filter for one email address. It checks your mail on the server before it is actually downloaded. Install, enter your email settings and download. You can then begin to teach it what is spam and what is not. The emails that are given the green light are sent to your inbox.
SpamPal
• www.spampal.org
Program Type: Free Anti Spam Software
SpamPal works in a slightly different way to Mailwasher in that it checks your email as you download it to your email software and tags any suspicious emails with a special header, which you can filter out using your normal mail filtering.
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