LEVANTE LIFESTYLE

INTERNET ADVICE - SOME OF THE BEST FREE DOWNLOADS

By Ken Newbold

If you are connecting your PC to the internet then there are certain software programmes
you must consider using, otherwise you may not remain connected for too long.

ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE
Why spend money on anti-virus software when you can get this superb tool for free?
The software offers real-time, scheduled and on demand scanning, and automatically checks incoming emails for viruses. It also updates itself on a regular basis.
http://free.grisoft.com

ANTI-SPYWARE
There is no shortage of tools that you can use to protect your computer against malware, but spybot is the best free option. Running a full scan is quicker with spybot than a lot of commercial programs, but no less thorough.
www.spybot.com

FIREWALL SOFTWARE
A good firewall is essential for keeping your system safe, preventing external attacks and stopping spyware or Trojans from contacting the outside world. Comodo’s firewall monitors all internet traffic and lets you allow or deny applications which attempt to go online.
www.personalfirewall.comodo.com

MAILWASHER
It’s difficult to avoid spam entirely, but mailwasher free certainly helps you reduce the amount that comes your way. The software lets you check your incoming mail on the mail server and download, delete or bounce any waiting messages. Bouncing them is a useful tick as this makes your address appear invalid to the sender.
www.mailwasher.net

INTERNET FILTER
A browser add-on for internet explorer and firefox, site advisor rates the safety of websites you visit using a traffic light system. Safe sites are green, questionable ones are yellow, and sites which are deemed to be no-go areas are highlighted in red.
www.siteadvisor.com

RECOVERY TOOL
It’s easy to delete whole files or folders from your computer by mistake. Thankfully windows only removes the reference to the content, not the data itself, which lets Recuva locate and retrieve deleted files on your PC with surprising ease.
www.recuva.com

FILE SHREDDER
If you want to ensure a deleted file is gone for good and can’t easily be retrieved you need to shred it using eraser. The programme makes content unrecoverable by repeatedly overwriting its position on the hard disk with random data patterns.
www.heidi.ie/eraser