Who needs all this protection anyway? The answer is everyone, well at least everyone who connects to the internet. Lets face it, there are a lot of nasty people out to spoil your day by infecting your computer with a virus or worse retrieving all of your personal information and even stealing your identity. To avoid this, like most people you will go out and buy the best firewall, spy-ware and anti-virus software you can find, it's not cheap, but you don't care so long as your protected. You will pay to be protected because you have no choice, or do you? What a lot of people don't realize is that there are many good down loadable free software programs on the internet that rival there expensive counterparts. You don't have to spend a lot of money to be protected as a matter of fact you don't have to spend any money at all, because these programs are totally free. May I suggest the following four freeware programs, they are easy to use and give excellent protection against hackers and viruses.

Avast Home Edition is a complete anti-virus package, that is free for registered home non-commercial users. It contains an on-demand scanner with two interfaces (simple for novices and advanced for experienced users), an on-access scanner with Standard Shield (which protects against execution and opening malware programs) and an embedded e-mail scanner which scans incoming and outgoing email messages. avast! Home integrates with the Windows Explorer right click menu and also includes a special screen saver which is able to scan your system while your computer is not in use.

Spyware Blaster doesn`t scan and clean for so-called spyware, but prevents it from being installed in the first place. It achieves this by disabling the CLSIDs of popular spyware ActiveX controls, and also prevents the installation of any of them via a webpage.

AdAware is a privacy tool, that scans your memory, registry, hard, removable and optical drives for known data-mining, aggressive advertising, and tracking components. It then lists the results and offers to remove or quarantine the components. The program detects a wide range of adware/spyware related issues and can be updated with the latest signatures via the built-in update utility.

Sygate Personal Firewall is more than an advanced, user-friendly personal firewall -- it is a bi-directional intrusion defense system. Sygate Personal Firewall ensures your personal computer is completely protected from malicious hackers and other intruders while preventing unauthorized access from your computer to a network. In essence, Sygate Personal Firewall makes your protected machines invisible to the outside world.

I use all of these programs on my own personal computer and have found that they give excellent protection against hackers and viruses and are as good or exceed any software out there regardless of price.To learn more about and to download any or all of these free programs for your own personal use go to http://www.ajlfreeweb.com/free_software2.htm

About the author:

Article by AJL. AJL is the webmaster of http://www.ajlfreeweb.com His site offers webmasters and the general public free advertising with classified ads. You can place ads to buy and sell products online or place ads to promote your website. The site also offers free animated musical ecards and Internet chat rooms.