Technology

Free Anti-Virus and Firewall Solutions Worth Looking At

Written by juicebox on June 6, 2008 5:37 am EST

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What? Is it even possible to get good protection for free? Some say that it’s not possible, yet two prominent IT security vendors are going beyond the curve, delivering better products than what the major Anti-Virus and Software Firewall vendors are providing.

Believe it or not, there is a trend starting in some of the most critical software we use every day, Anti-Virus and Firewalls. So if you we’re concerned that the big boys aren’t doing well for you, have no fear! Some of these products mentioned are free to both personal and business users, others are just free for personal use, but their licensing for business use is quite lucrative, and provided the technology, seems more than worth it. So just what vendors am I talking about?

eEye Digital Security, and Comodo. Both are very strong Information Technology Security forms in the United States, and both are offering pieces of software that blow away their competition. Both companies products have a bit more technical output that the standard user typically understands, but with a little understanding with your IT friend, you’ll be on your way to securing your PC in no time.

eEye Digital Security - Blink

Our first mention of the day, is Blink from eEye Digital Security. It is probably one of the most robust free anti-virus and all over personal security solutions i’ve seen online for the price (zero!).

During testing, I have found it to be excellent in detection, finding rogue malware that some other major vendor products missed entirely, and is practically an IT person’s dream when it comes to it’s reporting functionality.

One of the major plus’s I give to Blink, is in it’s reporting. Most anti-virus’s will warn you of some “generic” virus most of the time these days, with not much other information. When you want that information, good luck finding it. Blink makes it one-click away, and gives me all the details I need. Where the file was, what it was infected with, and what it performed.

In one of my Tests, I Installed Blink on a computer infected with Virtumundo, a virus known for pop-ups, and dropping random script files that bring more “friends” lets say. To most, that virus is a death warrant, requiring a reformat, because there is no way to get rid of it. However, three hours with Blink running, and some fancy IT footwork in Dos, Registry Editor, and Network Management, the virus was completely removed. No reformating required. Other AV solutions, just didn’t install (errored out) or would crash in this same scenario.

In further testing, I found Blink was not very resource intensive, and reacted faster the majority of the time to malware than competitors software. (I tested it against Trend Micro Internet Security).

Another strong strength of this software, is it’s Vulnerability Assessment. I can’t really compare it to other vendors in the AV field, because there is really no comparison. The AV Vulnerability Assessment software that i’ve had the opportunity to test, only checked for Windows Patches, which windows update could tell me about. Whats the point of the feature? In Blink, it tells me of all the vulnerability potentials in all my software, whether vendor or user reported. Major plus there.

So what all does eEye Blink offer you?

Robust Anti-Virus
Personal Firewall (Internet and Application)
Intrusion Prevention
System Protection
Vulnerability Asssessment

In my configuration, I disabled the Firewall, both Internet and Application for a different solution (which I speak about below), but kept all the other options running.

The only negative I saw with the product is the amount of blocked transmissions caused by the Intrusion Prevention module. IPS technology is still fairly new, so it does have its kwirks here and there, and you may have to adjust your rules to eliminate the non-intrusion notices.

Overall, I found Blink to be quite a competitor in the Anti-Virus arena, and worth looking into. It’s firewall has a slight learning curve for most personal users, who may not be experienced in TCP / UDP, system file names, and other techy speak that they will initially be bombarded with. However, a day or evening with their favorite IT person, and they will find it useful.

For Consumers (Personal Home Use), this may be a great Alternative to McAfee, Trend Micro, Symantec, or other vendors. If your a business user, don’t fear though! A professional license of Blink is only $30.00 a year, and they have a nice Central Management product for you IT folks that want to manage a good amount of installations.

For More Information on Blink and Download: http://free-antivirus.eeye.com/

Comodo Firewall Pro

There is one word I have to describe this Firewall software. Amazing. I started seeking out a new firewall alternative after my current one provided with my Anti-Virus, Trend Micro, didn’t want to stop certain programs from accessing the internet, and became difficult to configure to perform such an action.

So my search led me to Firewall Pro, developed by Comodo. I have never seen, such a robust firewall in my life, until I downloaded this jem of software.

Comodo Firewall Pro provides two stages of firewall protection:

Network Firewall
Defense + Application Firewall

For those that haven’t explored firewall’s much, your probably wondering what is the difference? Network Firewall protects your communications coming back and forth on your network, whether wired or wireless. In addition, by default I got messages of “Do you want this program to access xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx”? Exactly what I was looking for!

Defense+ is another great feature of Comodo Firewall Pro and what sold me to it’s features almost immediately. The first message? “Program blah.exe wants to access your display adapter. Allow, or Deny?”. Talk about protection. A suspicious program can’t even show you something without your approval, let alone “access” your keyboard.

The resources that the Firewall consumes with Power Use is very slim, and doesn’t bode to memory leaks. My prior security program would overload it’s proxy as my network usage increased, before crashing everything for a good 10 minutes. I was pushing the limits of my network adapter without the Comodo Firewall Pro breaking a sweat.

Another Plus? Free for Personal and Business user’s. That’s right! Comodo decided to release it free for anybody to use.

Lastly, Comodo helps you make a total solution, for as little as $39 from the writing of this post, They will install and help maintain their software for the year that it’s installed in your computer along with a guarantee that if something goes astray, they will be there to help you out and fix it. For home users, or more inexperienced computer user’s this is superb.

Overall from over three weeks of testing this firewall out, I am extremely pleased with it. If your looking for an alternative solution for your firewall needs, thats a bit faster, less buggy, and bloated, then Comodo is your answer.

Learn more about Comodo Firewall Pro at: http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/

Regardless of what solution you choose, the thing to remember is this. No software is 100% foolproof in securing your computer. Proactive computing, and knowing some of the basic terms and operations of a computer can take you far in making sure you stay secure, in addition to getting you quicker support over the phone.

Have you found some cool tools similar to Blink or Firewall Pro? I’d love to hear about them. Tell me about your experiences by commenting below!

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