a blog to help those less IT educated.

A simple concept, but one people ultimately overlook. Most people will tell you to buy some form of Anti-Virus from the likes of McAfee or Norton. This is not exactly a necessary thing to invest in. There exists on the internet a wealth of free alternatives that will not only provide the same services for nothing, but with also probably not clog up your computer with software that slows down your computer.

I’ll briefly go through some of the better anti-malware and anti-virus alternatives currently on the market.

Malwarebytes:

One of the most popular anti-malware products on go at the moments. It’s simple program whose main function is to scan your computer for bad stuff that could do damage if left unchecked. It will run scans and destroy any threats found, without taking up too much resources. As far as anti-malware software goes, this is exceptionally lightweight and most users will probably not even notice it once installed.

Spybot – Search & Destroy:

Spybot Search & Destroy is a free anti-spyware program that targets adware, malicious code, and other threats that can be found on the internet. It also cleans security tracks, shreds files, and tweaks the Registry (a big file list that you don’t really need to know about). Spybot wouldn’t be a replacement for a fully-fledged anti-malware/anti-virus program, but it works as a nice complement program. It is quite lightweight and low on resource usage.

Avast Free Anti-Virus:

Avast is definitely one of the better free anti-virus software packages available at the moment. The most notable feature of Avast is its ability to run as a full anti-virus without killing your computer in terms of memory usage. Its got a clean, user-friendly interface which is always a plus, plenty of features for a free product and of course won’t burn out your computers memory usage while doing its thing. A definite product to consider when looking for free protection!

AVG Anti-Virus Free:

Probably one of (if not the) best free anti-viruses out there, AVG touts itself as being a lightweight, discrete and extremely user-friendly piece of software. Personally, I’d agree with this. Whenever people ask me to have a look at their computer or sort it out, I’ll usually end up throwing AVG Free on their system. Again, this anti-virus is subtle, quiet and most of all, doesn’t hog memory. This and having a very reliable name and history leads me to always use this software when helping out people with computer problems.

Of course, these are all just suggestions. It is up to you yourself dear reader, to try out these different programs to see which one suits your, and your computer best. If looking for opinions, I would suggest a combo of AVG Free and Malwarebytes used together for a fairly solid security system.