HOWTO: Switch from commercial Internet Security Software to Freeware

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I have decided I am fed up with paying for Trend Micro Internet Security Suite. Every year it seems like it gets more expensive. Don’t get me wrong, I like the software, I just don’t like paying for it each year with less and less of an upgrade discount. I would like to see a software company start having a loyalty program, where the longer you have their software and upgrade it each year, the bigger the upgrade discount you get each time. This isn’t the point of this post though, I’m here to tell you how you can move from Commercial Software to Freeware in the internet security world.

First I will start with the software that I am using. I deceided to use ClamWin for my antivirus because of all the great things I have heard about ClamAV. It doesn’t take many resources to run it and it seems pretty fast. I need to do a little more configuring because right now a full computer scan takes forever because it actually scans the inside of every single compressed file on the drive. There is one downside to ClamWin and that is the fact that there is no real-time scanner, all files must be manually scanned. For me that is no big deal because I scan everything I download anyway and I don’t use Outlook or anything like that. Even if I did though, there is a plug-in for Outlook that integrates ClamWin to remove infected attachments automatically.

For my firewall I selected Sunbelt Kerio. I have read some very good reviews on it. Again, it doesn’t use many resources, that is good for me because I like to game. Kerio also didn’t seem to be as intrusive to me as ZoneAlarm is. The free version of ZoneAlarm also has been scoring poorly on leak tests. I have heard Jetico is one of the bests when it comes to technical ability, but I have also heard that it is rather difficult to set up and use. I will stick with Kerio until I have any problems and I will be sure to talk about those problems, if any, on here.

The anti-spyware I use is Windows Defender. The full version was released about the same time as IE7. I used it back when it was Windows Anti-Spyware and liked it well enough. The new upgraded Windows Defender is a little more polished. I suppose it does a pretty good job of keeping spyware off my computer. I haven’t had to worry about it too much because I am always wary of what I download and I use Firefox which does a pretty good job of preventing anything unauthorized from being installed. If you have problems getting it because of the annoying Windows Genuine Advantage check you can always check out Lifehacker’s post about bypassing WGA validation.

There are quite a few good websites out there for finding freeware. Download.com has always been one I liked when looking for something in particular. One site I used in my search was Tech Support Alert’s 46 Best Ever Freeware Utilities. They have many good reviews and comparisons sorted by type of software that you are looking for. If you have any questions about my experience so far, feel free to contact me using the form on my site.

Update: A great way to give your computer active scanning which ClamWin is missing is to use a program called WinPooch. It monitors many vital files and your memory to see what is being modified and can detect malicious actions. One thing about WinPooch though is you will want to disable it whenever you are running windows update or installing something or you will have a lot of alert pop-ups. I disabled it during boot-up because I really only reboot when I install or update something and it was becoming quite annoying. It runs fine in the background though after the system is up.

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