We have discussed Malware here before, and have offered some (we believe) good solutions for preventing and responding to malware threats.

However, many of those solutions are commercial products, and while we stand by them as our best suggestions we do want to offer folks lower cost–or even free–alternatives for dealing with malware.

That’s what this post is for. To look at some alternative options for anyone who can’t fit commercial protections into their budgets. We’re not comparing the free vs. commercial, there’s no way to do that fairly we feel, simply because commercial providers have far greater resources to work with, but those behind many of the free alternatives are usually devoted and dedicated to providing the best products they can, so are certainly worth looking at.

Some recent news and articles about malware threats:
Sunbelt Software Announces Top 10 Malware Threats for November

Sunbelt Software, a leading provider of Windows security software, today announced the top 10 most prevalent malware threats for the month

5 Critical Steps to Protecting Your Computer on the Internet

Spyware – and other things known as adware and malware – is becoming as big a problem as viruses. Spyware programs can cause a lot of problems

Not all malware detection is created equal
Not all malware detection is created equal The internet is now the number-one conduit for infecting users with malware. Sophos detects a new infected web page every few seconds. This white paper outlines the terms you need to know and the steps you should take to stay safe

How To Remove Malware For Free

Step-by-step guide for removing just about any malware absolutley free.

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• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Review (topsoftware.co.za)

Technorati Tags: malware

• Computers and Viruses and Spyware, Oh My
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• Internet Security in 2009

We haven’t had time yet to really put this one to the test, but on first glance it appears to be a solid offering and we’ve seen some good things said about it by current users, so we offer it here as something for you to review and consider for yourself.

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Spyware Terminator – Free Spyware Protection

by Ryano

Spyware Terminator is offered as a free spyware remover. It is free to download and to use, you will never be charged for it. Spyware Terminator aims to provide spyware search and destroy function and still find and stop viruses. In order to successfully perform spyware search and destroy tasks the software utilizes advanced technologies all of which are free to you, the user. I downloaded this software and I have begun using it, so below I will outline my findings. First I’d like to mention that while this is a very comprehensive suite of spyware seek and destroy utilities, it is available for free, meaning no cost to try, use, or keep it.

Spyware Terminator uses many technologies to keep your computer safe from everyday threats. Features like fast spyware scanning, real time protection, HIPS protection, and antivirus protection work in a brilliant symphony to protect you and your personal data. Fast spyware scanning usually means fast spyware search and destroy. I found this software to be both effective and user friendly. In case you are wondering, HIPS stands for host intrusion prevention. The program creates a database of executable files on your hard disk and monitors their behavior, if they get out of line; a warning is displayed prompting user interaction. To facilitate more robust spyware search and destroy, Spyware Terminator includes ClamWin, which is the Windows version of ClamAV, an open source highly regarded antivirus program. In addition to those features, Spyware Terminator is one of the only free spyware removal software packages to offer free scheduled scanning, which is a feature that is usually found on software that costs a bit of money. Another feature of Spyware terminators which contributes a lot to its spyware search and destroy success is its automatic updates.

Spyware terminator allows the user to select a time to update the software, it is configurable so it can update every day, week, or when you tell it to. This is another nice feature which is typically found on software costing lots more. Finally, we reach Spyware Terminator’s final great selling point, the support for it is free. When Spyware Terminator is having trouble performing its principle role “spyware search and destroy”, you can e-mail tech support and at no cost to you, they will help you figure out what is going on. Really, this is a very robust spyware seek and destroy package and it’s completely free.

Want to find out more about free virus removal? Head over to Free Virus Scan and Removal

About the author: Ryano is a security consultant professional with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science and a number of security certificates. He runs a number of blogs as well as doing security consulting for consumers and businesses. Ryano runs a number of blogs including Your Free Virus Removal

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#1 Stop the Indexing Service – Windows like to index every file on your system for faster searching through Explorer, however whenever I’ve talked to people about this they overwhelmingly tell me that they never (or rarely) use the search feature in Explorer, so there’s really no reason to allow Indexing to run.

It takes up memory and CPU resources in the background, as well as disk space on your hard drive–so shutting this down will give a performance boost to your normal computing use.

To turn it off simply Right click on your hard drive from within Explorer and select the Properties option. At the bottom of the informational pop-up you will see a check box labeled “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching”

Make sure that’s unchecked and press the “Apply” button. Make sure to apply the changes to all files and folders on the drive.

#2 Minimize Windows Animation Effects – Windows XP offers lots of neat animation and graphics effects, however these come at a cost to performance. If your machine is slow or sluggish you can get a boost by turning these off.

Simply Right click anywhere on your Desktop and select “Properties”.

Select the “Appearance” tab and press the “Effects” button.

In the pop-up settings screen, you can uncheck everything, or just some effects as you desire, then press “Okay”, and then press “Apply”.

#3 Defragment Your Hard Drive – Either using the Windows Defragger tool or some 3rd party Defragger, you should defragment your hard drive at least once per month, I do it once per week, to keep your disk optimized and running faster–which means your whole system runs faster.

I use the free tool Auslogics Disk Defrag because it seems to be faster and stronger than the default Windows Defragger tool.

#4 Clean Your Registry – over time your Windows registry will become cluttered with bad, outdated and unnecessary entries, so cleaning these out will speed up registry reading and access which helps to improve overall performance.

You DO NOT want to start messing around in the Registry file on your own, one wrong move can crash your system and prevent it from booting up again. Fortunately, there are good, free tools available to help with this process.

What I use is CCleaner, and I always make sure to take advantage of the option to make a backup of your registry before every cleaning. I tend to test a lot of software, which means lots of installations and uninstalls on my computer, so I run CCleaner every week, but running it once per month is probably enough for most users.

#5 Lower Your Color Depth – Most people will never notice a difference between running their monitors at 16-bit or higher color depths, but the higher the color depth setting the more resources your display are using, so by lowering the setting to 16-bit or even 24-bit will provide a small boost to your system.

To change this setting simply Right click anywhere on your Desktop and select “Properties”.

Select the “Settings” tab and under Color Quality use the drop-down listing to reduce your color depth setting, then click “Apply”.

#6 Clean Up That Disk Clutter – before running your monthly (or weekly) Disk Defragmentation, run the Disk Cleanup tool on your hard drive to remove unnecessary or unwanted files that can get left behind by programs and build up over time.

To run this just open Explorer and Right click on your main hard drive then select “Properties”.

In the pop-up screen you will see the Disk Cleanup button, press it and follow the on-screen directions. After it completes is an optimal time to run your Disk Defragger.

#7 Clean Up Your Desktop – while it may seem convenient to keep icons for every program and file on your computer right there on the Desktop, the fact is the more icons you have on the Desktop the slower your Desktop will load and respond to your actions.

Windows has an easy Start Menu that you can organize to best suit your needs, as well as a Quick Launch toolbar for your most used programs, these are the places that your program icons should be rather than on the Desktop.

For files, if you don’t want to use the My Documents features to keep your files organized, then just creating a single new folder on your Desktop and dumping all of your individual files into it will make a difference. The bottom line is you don’t want a bunch of icons and files sitting on your Desktop if you’re concerned with performance.

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There’s a lot more users can do to improve their PC performance, but I wanted to start with 7 and if this is helpful to readers I will write additional follow-ups with even more tips.

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Technorati Tags: Disk Cleanup, Windows Registry, Windows XP

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I’m not talking about the advertising that you see on web sites you visit, even if you find those annoying (and many do), they help to keep the content that you enjoy free and help foster the constant creation of fresh new content for you. Let’s face it, site owners and bloggers who provide high quality content deserve (and often need) some compensation for their time and efforts, so on-site advertising is something we should all be able to deal with in most cases.

No, what I’m talking about here is Adware programs that are placed on your PC, often without you even knowing about it, that throw false error messages, virus detections or just plain blatant advertising pop-ups in your face.

Unlike on-site advertising where you essentially allow and accept the site owners to show you their advertising, Adware software is malicious and not permissions based by any sense.

But there are ways to deal with it, and this article I found today is pretty good for explaining some of your options.

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Remove Adware to speed up Computer

Adware is a type of advertising display software. If we describe specifically, it is a type of executable program. The sole intension of these programs is delivering advertising content in such a format that can be redundant as well as unexpected for the computer users.

Adware is a rampant problem and irritating enough in today’s age of computers. Once your PC gets infected with adware you will constantly receive annoying pop ups which also reduce your PC speed. The people who usually design adware want to make money through this malicious business.

It can take a long time to remove adware threat manually from computers but even this is not a guaranteed process. Adware are formatted in such a way so that it can be difficult for the users to remove it. Even if you manage to remove the threat for some time, it not only has the chance of returning, but also you are open to the new threats also.

One of the best ways to protect your computer from adware and other malicious threats is to install anti adware software. In addition to removing present threats, well-designed antivirus or anti spyware software should be installed. It will prevent new infections and automatically scan the system and update files.

While choosing an anti adware program you should check that the software performs a scheduled scan and provides real time protection. It is the main feature of good quality anti adware software. A cheap anti adware software will not provide real time protection. It will only remove infections once they turn up.

There are a number of programs which, in spite of having installed properly, enter into the system carrying loads of annoying ads. As you install those programs they leave certain codes on your PC which starts throwing ads wherever they wish. Routine scans are necessary to avoid such situation. It will help to detect and eliminate these and present you a popup free PC and web browsing experience.

About the Author Sarah N Jones is an expert in freelance technical writing from California. She focuses on remote support of computer systems and provides professional insight into the subject. She has also worked directly with software companies and possesses in-depth knowledge of the subject matter.

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• 2 Simple Tips to Prevent Spybot, Spyware and Adware Intrusions

Spyware!

Basically, spyware is typically a small software program (or script) written with the single purpose of spying on your computer files and/or keyboard strokes in order to find and steal personal information, such as credit card numbers, login usernames and passwords, trade or business secrets, or any other sensitive information the spyware creator may want to get their hands on.

Most often, spyware gets delivered to you as a parasite attached to some other software or files, such as images, without your knowledge.

It can be hard to determine if a file or program you’ve downloaded from the Internet has spyware attached to it, and harder still to tell if you’ve been infected with spyware. That, mixed with how serious the security risk is to PC’s and workstations, is the main reason we talk about spyware so often here.

And while there is certain anti-spyware software which we endorse here, we really don’t care what software you use as much as we care about urging everyone to use some form of prevention and protection software in addition to a strong Firewall and Anti-Virus.

Image Source: sxc.hu user arinas74

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The bottom line with these threats is that while a majority can be cleaned or removed from your system after infection, that doesn’t mean they didn’t do great harm before you found them, so the best thing to do is take every step possible to prevent them from getting on your PC in the first place.

This means having a good Firewall and AntiVirus setup on your machine, and allowing them to update your protections daily. This usually runs in the background and won’t interfere with what you’re doing on the computer.

There are free options for both available, as well as affordable commercial titles too. We prefer one of the commercial products out there simply because they seem to update against the latest threats a little faster than the free options do, and the level of support you can expect when paying for software is usually higher.

Still, if you can’t afford a few dollars for one of the commercial firewall and antivirus products then at the very least use the free options… just get your PC protected.

Technorati Tags: antivirus, firewall, malware, spyware

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• Information leaks
• Hackers
• Spyware and Malware
• Virus and Trojan infections

These are just a few of the potential risks when employees have Internet access, and they pose a threat to more than just the individual employee’s workstation. Once inside, hackers or programs can potentially gain access to your entire network, your databases, customer information, payroll information…almost everything you have in digital form.

For managers and owners in workplaces where employees have Internet access it’s vital to ensure that you have taken every possible measure to secure your network and every workstation against intrusions. Don’t rely on your employees to be safe while online, because without the proper tools and security in place there is no such thing as safe Internet activity.

And for anyone who works in an office that provides Internet access, it would not be out of line to inquire with your supervisor about whether they’ve taken the appropriate steps to secure their office hardware from intrusions. Remember, you’re not just protecting the business, but also your own personal information and the data of your customers too.

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This trojan horse has also been used by some malicious people to do things like launch Denial of Service attacks on networks from the infected machines, so this is more severe than a simple annoying issue of advertising, it opens your machine up to all kinds of risky behavior.

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Vundo Removal- How did this virus ruin my computer?

by Jake Black

In the past few years there has been one virus on the internet that has destroyed countless computers and had their owners wondering how it all happened. The vundo.trojan virus has steadily infected computers all over the world at a great rate since its inception in 2005. Many experts state that over 50% of the computers connected to the computer without adequate antivirus protection were infected in 2008. The vundo Trojan is definitely a disaster for any computer, as it can literally destroy a computer in mere days, if not hours. I have personally had a lot of experience dealing with vundo over the years, and have staged many battles against the virus over the years and vundo has won a majority of the time. Vundo has taken over many names over the years of its existence and has hundreds of variations; virtuemonde, vundo, win32 vundo, MS Juan, virtumondo are just a few of the more popular stands infecting computers today. The one fact about vundo that is concerning is that the most popular spyware programs on the market cannot remove the virus. Programs like Norton or McAfee can detect the threat and tell you when your computer is infected, but have problems actually neutralizing the threat of the Trojan. The problem that most people have when they get the virus is they think that since the virus was detected it should be taken care of by one of these programs, which most of the time is incorrect. These programs are very good at many things, but do not cut it when it comes to the vundo virus, probably because the virus was designed to withstand these programs that control most of the market. Vundo spreads in a way that is hard to control, especially with the spread of p2p networks like limewire, kazza, and bittorrent. You can get vundo in many ways, including:

• P2P (peer to peer) programs such as limewire, kazzaa, and ares are common sources of the virus. Fake music, movie, or codec files are uploaded and when they are opened on your computer automatically install vundo without your knowledge.

• Direct downloads from bad websites. Many sites will funnel you through to a download of the virus without your knowledge, many of these sites are of the adult nature and create pop ups and trouble for your computer. Some sites will not let you exit unless you download a file onto your computer, and these are extremely dangerous and account for many vundo problems.

• Emails from spammers. Many people will open the wrong email and get the vundo virus. Anti-spyware can generally regulate and check your emails for problems before they are opened.

• Other ways of getting vundo exist, but they all come from the internet in some way.

The Dangers of letting vundo have free reign over your computer are monumental, as it can download horrible files like key loggers that download important files from your computer and can lead directly to identity theft. It is extremely important to remove the virus completely and quickly to prevent any loss of data and the working order of your computer. Visit www.vundo-removal.com for vundo removal tips and recommended anti-spyware programs.

Hi, I’m Jake Black and I have been an IT specialist for 20 years. I have an expertise in spyware and anti-virus programs and own a few websites dedicated to protection of computers from viruses. Please Visit www.vundo-removal.com for a detailed guide on how to remove the vundo virus and keep spyware off of your computer for good.

Technorati Tags: vundo trojan

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That’s almost $400 in one year to do what she probably could have done herself in just a few minutes with the right software helper, many of which can be purchased for under $100.

Here is some more information on how almost anybody can do their own security clean ups and save some money:

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Virus Help and Spyware Removal…how company’s profit off you!

by James Plewak

The truth about how to remove viruses and spyware.

Are you technologically challenged? Do you pay large electronic stores for “tune-ups” and virus removal? Unfortunately any company that charges you money to remove your viruses is taking advantage of your lack of knowledge. Removing viruses and cleaning out malware are the common problems faced with people today.

First of all, to remove malware you don’t need any sort of certification or programming expertise, all you need is a good virus removal program and a search engine. Here are the simple steps needed to remove a virus for people who really don’t know how things work.

1) Purchase effective software that doesn’t take up a lot of system resources. (Information on anti virus products and other software at bottom of page)

2) Install the software with its easy to follow step by step installation procedures.

3) Run the software’s entire system scans.

4) Follow the software’s virus removal steps…

Sounds just a little to simple…

That is basically what the people you pay 50$ to 100$ do to remove your viruses. Kind of frustrating isn’t it? However not ALL viruses are that simple to remove, that is where google comes into play. Simply google what the virus may be doing, from moving your cursor to closing your web browser, and there are guides posted by other people for removing the virus! My website will recommend to you the best products and helpful guides to remove viruses.

When you encounter a virus that your software is not able to remove, first you have to find out what kind of virus you are dealing with. Once you have done your research into google on your computer’s symtoms, you just have to bombard your system with anti malware software. When your computer gets a virus you basicly treat it as that bad cold you got before you had a big day at work.

You woke up in the morning, feeling awful, and took as many cold medications, remedy’s, tea’s and decongestants that you thought your body could handle. Similarly with a virus you just install some free and some very inexpensive products and run them all over the course of the day, any virus that is in your system, will be removed!

James D. Plewak offers computer tips, help and product recommendations to optimize speed, safety and security. Visit Virus help and removal for more information, helpful tips, post questions or find products. James will do is best assisting you with your computer and virus issues.

Technorati Tags: antivirus, malware, spyware

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Waiting until after some malicious hacker steals your personal information, credit card numbers or even identity is not a good plan, so we’ll continue offering tips like these on the most basic and fairly easy measures that can be taken to protect yourself and your computer when you’re going online.

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5 Critical Steps to Protecting Your Computer on the Internet

by John Lenaghan

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