A System Security Suite is one which bundles all the required tools for complete System Protection, like AntiVirus, Firewall, AntiSpyware, File cleaners, Registry Cleaners etc. For example Norton Internet Security, System Mechanic etc.
I saw many posts asking which Security Suite is better, which is
lighter, Which is the best free AV and some thing like that. One of the common replies was that Security suites were highly resource hungry and some of the best AVs are Bloatwares! And all of them are Commercial softwares and they cost a bomb!
How about making or rather
assembling your own Security Suite, which consists all the required tools? These tools in the
assembled Suite are very efficient and powerful. Moreover your Security Suite is completely FREE!
Read on.............
AntiVirus:-
Well, Viruses need no introduction, do they? To battle them you need an AntiVirus!
AVG 7 Free AntiVirus,
AntiVir and
Avast are some of the few
full fledged free AnitViruses. Full fledged AV means that, it should at least have Real Time scanner, On Demand scanner, Mail scanner, Automatic Updates.
AVG, Avast and AntiVir satisfy all the above conditions and have good Virus detection, Features, and Quick updates and is also very light on resources. You don't have to worry about any Viruses, Worms or Trojans sneaking into your PC!
AntiSpyware:-
Spywares, Adwares and Hijackers (collectively called as Malwares, short for Malicious Softwares) can do major damages to the system. Notorious malwares like CoolWebSearch, VX2 etc are very hard to remove and are not detected/completely removed by the AntiVirues. This calls in for a special dedicated tool, AntiSpyware!
AdAware and
SpyBot SnD are very good AntiSpywares which have frequently updated large database of Malwares.
SpyBot SnD has one cool tool built into it called as
TeaTimer, this TeaTimer monitors the System continuously and protects the System files and Registry from Malwares.
SpyBot SnD also adds a BHO to the Internet Explorer, by using this SpyBot blocks the
bad downloads(like installation of ActiveX components, BHOs by Spywares without the knowledge of the user) automatically. These two softwares are a must have in every computer.
Windows XP users can also install
MS AntiSpyware, which uses Giant's database, and has a pretty good detection rate.
Anti Trojan:-
Not all Trojan Horses are detected by AntiVirues and AntiSpyware. So you should have softwares which specialize in the removal of Trojans. So called
BackDoor Trojans open your PC from the inside to attackers, which enables the person/website who sent the Trojan to monitor your PC. Even worse variant is so called
RATware, short for
Remote Administration Tool, which enables a hacker to control your PC!
a2 Free is the best free Anti Trojan (and Anti Malware) software available. Currently a2 Free has a database of some 94,000 Trojans, Dialers, Worms and Spywares. And this will grow since it has frequent updates to database.
Antoher good AntiTrojan available for Free is
Ewido Security Suite, this comes as 14 day trial after which special features are disabled and free, basic version can be used. It's better to have both the scanners.
Immunize!:-
Above softwares detect and remove Virues and Malwares present in the PC, but they can not prevent them from sneaking into your system (except Real Time scanner of the AntiVirus to an extent).
SpywareBlaster prevents the installation of Malwares into system. SpywareBlaster need not be running in the background, but it's a
run once tool.
It's working principle can be described as follows, many Spywares, Hijackers which come through ActiveX components, make certain Registry entries called as CLSIDs. SpywareBlaster has a database of these
bad CLSIDs. When we run SpywareBlaster once, it sets the
Kill Bit of the
bad CLSID as 1, this means, the corresponding ActiveX component are never called by Internet Explorer, thus preventing it's execution. So this prevents the execution of these Spywares even though they are in the PC. This is something like Immunization!
Firewall
There will be many virtual Ports in a computer. These ports are either open or closed. When the PC is connected to Internet, many Worms, Hackers scan for the open ports of PC connected, if they find an open port, they try to sneak in the System without the user's knowledge.
Popular attack of this type is SQL Slammer worm attack, known as HellKern. You would never know what's happening in the background.
To prevent these port scanning and other malicious attacks, Firewalls should be installed.
Firewalls act as barrier between PC and Net, and filter the data that is being transmitted and received. Also, Firewalls block all the open ports so that port scanning will be unsuccessful.
A popular Free Firewall is
ZoneAlarm, this is one critically acclaimed Firewall. ZoneAlarm is very light on System resources and it blocks each and every
baddies without failure!
Other good free Firewalls worth a try is
Kerio Personal,
Sygate Personal and
OutPost Personal.
Clean that junk!
After some time of PC usage, junk/temp files start to accumulate. This eats up space, and also functions as favorite hide out for viruses and malwares. So it's necessary to clean up the junk regularly.
CleanUp! and
CCleaner are very good Free cleaners available. They clean the every bit of junk in the system. Just run them before shutting down your PC or after disconnected from Internet to remove the junk.
Anther good junk cleaner is
GLock Temp Cleaner, this along with cleaning junk files, has one extra feature that is it lists all the archives present in the System, and later we can delete the unwanted archives.
Registry Cleaner:-
If any Softwares are installed in a PC, it makes a Registry entry. Registry entries are also created by softwares to
remember the user's preferences like
"Recently opened files" etc. These entries should be theoretically removed when the specific software or file is removed. But, many a times this does not happen. This leads to the accumulation of large number of junk in the registry. This degrades the System performance. This is where Registry Cleaners come into picture.
RegCleaner is one of the best free Registry cleaners available. Apart from cleaning, it has plenty of other features like Startup information, File type Editing etc.
Miscellaneous Tools:-
This is a list of free tools which perform some specialized tasks.
SpywareGuard is small real time bad download protection tool, which works in a similar manner of SpywareBlaster. This actively monitors Internet Explorer and blocks any malicious ActiveX Components, BHOs and Tracking Cookies.
MRUBlaster is a small tool from the house Javacoolsoftware which makes SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard. This nifty utility scans the computer for MRU lists (Most Recently Used lists are the history kept by the applications or Windows itself like recently opened documents, search items, files opened etc). MRUBlaster can scan and remove up to 30000 different MRU entries.
McAfee Stinger is an On demand virus remover which can detect and remove some 55 (and growing) common and dangerous Viruses , Trojans and their variants.
If you get all the above softwares, and use them regularly, then you are safe, well almost! All these softwares are completely free offering as much protection as their Commercial counterparts provide.
Finally our
own Security Suite consists of:-
AntiVirus ---------- AVG or Avast or AntiVir
Firewall------------- ZoneAlarm or Kerio or OutPost or Sygate
AntiSpyware------- SpyBot SnD, AdAware and MS AntiSpyware
AntiTrojan---------- a2 Free and Ewido
Immunization------ SpywareBlaster
Junk Cleaners------ CleanUp! and CCleaner
Registry Cleaner--- RegCleaner
Misc. Tools---------- SpywareGuard, MRUBlaster, McAfee Stinger
Alternate Browsers:-
Since Internet Explorer has
many vulnerabilities, it's easy for malicious Websites to drop
baddies into the System. Main target areas are Plugins for IE, BHOs, ActiveX components, Toolbars for IE. Spywares/Trojans masquerade as above these Add-ons for IE, and can do their job effectively!
So, it's safer to switch to alternate browsers like
FireFox and
Opera. These browsers, by design do not support the above listed AddOns (Two reasons for that! One is they are MS Technologies and the second one is of course, Security!).
These browsers also offer many user friendly features like Tabbed Browsing, Inbuilt Downloader with Resume support, faster page loading etc.
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[Guide] Make Your Own System Security Suite!!!!
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