The price for these security products is right

AVG Antivirus Free Edition 2011

Tried and true, AVG has one of the most widely used free products in the marketplace, offering protection against viruses and spyware.

In fact, AVG, which now claims more than 110 million users, has done the lion's share of its marketing via its free antivirus product in order to develop brand awareness and foster a loyal user base. The latest version of its free antivirus product has additional features such as AVG Social Networking Protection, AVG Protective Cloud Technology and AVG Smart Scanning.

The product is compatible with just about any Windows platform, including Windows 7, and is fast and easy to install. Plus subscribers have access to the company's free technical support and the latest updates.

GFI MailSecurity

No doubt, Trojans are a huge threat. Once downloaded, Trojans can wreak havoc on a user's computer by gaining access to personal data and then transmitting credit card and Social Security numbers, as well as other critical information to a server controlled by hackers. Many can evade or disable antivirus and other security software and often times those Trojans are delivered unobtrusively via a socially engineered email.

Subsequently, GFI MailSecurity contains a module that includes a Trojan and Executable scanner, designed to scour emails to determine whether the message contains infected attachments that could possibly download Trojan horses and viruses.

Among other things, the scanner checks for executables that could access FTP protocols, make use of the ICQ UN database or Remote Access Services, or otherwise try to hide itself from the Windows Task Manager.

Kaspersky File Scanner

Kaspersky's File Scanner has the answers for those users who think they've downloaded a suspicious file or malware from a malicious web application.

Users just have to indicate the file they want scanned, and the program is automatically uploaded from their computer to a dedicated server. The file in question is then checked using Kaspersky Anti-Virus. However, only one file of up to 1 MB can be checked at any one time. If there are several potentially suspicious files, users can check them in succession, or create an archive file no larger than 1 MB and check that.

The product is updated every three hours to make sure that the latest viruses get caught.

Kasperksy also is developing a new and improved version of the free Kaspersky Online Scanner, which protects users from myriad online threats.

Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials created quite a stir in the security community when it was released in 2008. However, the Microsoft brand that propelled its wide adoption has arguably been integral in underscoring the need for good computer security and fortifying computers around the globe for users who might otherwise go without.

The free Microsoft Security Essentials download, also known as MSE, provides realtime protection for PCs that guard against an array of threats including viruses, spyware and other malicious software.

The software giant bills the product as simple to install, easy to use, and always up to date with the latest antivirus technology. Users can easily tell if they're virus free by the "green" alert, while "red" would indicate the presence of viruses or malware.

Nsauditor Free Port Scanner

Yes, there are even free network security tools, the Nsauditor Free Port Scanner being one of them.
Specifically, the free product is a small and fast port scanner with an easy-to-use interface designed for the Win32 platform. The scanning tool allows users to scan ports on machines in a few seconds and scan on predefined port ranges.

The tool relies on TCP packets to determine available hosts and open ports, as well as the service associated with ports and other ways hackers can use the network as a vector to launch an attack.

Panda Cloud Antivirus

Acknowledged as the first free "in the cloud" security service, Panda Cloud Antivirus delivers instantaneous protection against real-world threats with next to no impact on computer performance. This minimal resource usage is a major benefit of Collective Intelligence, Panda's proprietary technology for automatically collecting and processing millions of malware samples in the cloud instead of locally on the user's PC.

The result is efficient, accurate malware protection that consumes only 15 MB of RAM, compared with 60 MB for traditional signature-based antivirus products. Panda's innovative reverse signature analysis approach, which feeds information about goodware and malware characteristics to the Collective Intelligence database, ensures rapid scanning for the newest and most dangerous malware.

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