Most of you are thinking 'Why should I have to pay for protection on the internet for something a retard made to damage my computer?'. Some have the money to spare paying for protection but some of you don't, that's when you resort to free scanners.

This thread is a collection of well known scanners and firewalls from around the web in no specific order. All of which are 100% free! The list will be updated when needed. If you find a scanner that should be added or something needs to be added to the description or something far worse, grammar, please message me.

Be sure that you investigate each scanner to find what suits your needs, you can debate with others all you want but in the end it's what you think is best.



Warning

You should only have one virus scanner, one spyware scanner and one firewall running on your computer at a time. NEVER run more than one of each at one time. These programs don't ask you to uninstall another scanner or firewall to kill competition. This is because they conflict with each other. You risk your computers stability when running more than one.







Microsoft Security Essentials
What better program to protect your Microsoft machine then with a program from Microsoft? Microsoft Security Essentials offers protection against viruses, spyware, rootkits, and trojans for free.

AVG Free
AVG scans offers real time protection from viruses and spyware around the web. Also includes a Safe Search tool to help keep you safe from bad websites on search engines.

Avast! Antivirus and Spyware
Avast! offers removal and real time protection from viruses and spyware. Includes removal of rootkits and has websheilds, antivirus kernal, resident protection, P2P and IM shield and more.
Requires free e-mail registration.

Avira
Avira offers removal and real time protection from viruses and rootkits. Includes protection from dialers and rootkit detection.

Spybot Search and Destroy
SS&D offers you spyware removal. It includes a Tea-Timers which monitors your computer for unusual changes and asks you if they should be made.

Ad-Aware Free
Ad-Aware offers you spyware removal. Includes a basic real time protection tool, rootkit removal and is integrated with Windows Defender.

TheatFire Antivirus
ThreatFire combines itself with any antivirus software to help improve protection by determining the behavior of things happening on your computer. Includes many security features.

MalwareBytes AntiMalware
MalwareBytes in a new scanner for detecting and removing spyware. It offers great spyware detection rates with easy removal. Free for scanning but requires payment for real time protection.

Spyware Terminator
Spyware Terminator offers virus and spyware scanning with removal and real-time protection. Also includes HIPS protection.

Hazard Shield
Hazard Shield is a new virus and malware remover with real time protection. It offers a range of extra tools from File Killer, ADS Scanning, Service Scanning, Hosts Scanning, Uninstall List and more.

Spyware Doctors Starter Edition
Spyware Doctors offers a large definition database of spyware to help remove nearly every threat, includes a File Guard to protect files and Immunizer to make your compute immune to some threats.

a-sqaured Free
a-sqaured Free offers scans for viruses and spyware however it doesn't offer any real-time protection.







Comodo Firewall
Comodo firewall monitors any communication to and from the internet, pausing the programs internet connection until you allow it's request. Also comes with optional AntiVirus and includes Defence+ to monitor any suspicious changes to your computer. Keeps your computers ports stealthed.

ZoneAlarm
ZoneAlarm offers the same protection as Comodo Firewall, monitoring all communication to and from the internet making sure you give the program permission to connect to the internet. Keeps your computers ports stealthed.

PC Tools Firewall Plus
PC Tools offers you protection on the internet while working, surfing and playing. Includes advanced rules and is easy to use from novices to experts.

Online Virus and Spyware Scanners

Trend Micro Housecall
Trend Micro will check your computer for viruses, spyware and malware as well as other vulnerabilities. It will remove anything it finds.

Kaspersky Online Scan
Kaspersky offers one of the largest definition databases on the internet and will scan your computer thoroughly. It will give any locations of infected objects for you to remove manually.

VirusTotal
VirusTotal will scan a single file you upload to their website with 28 scanners for infection and for the more advanced, file analyzers to show MD5 hashes and more. Only one file may be scanned at once or you can upload multiple files inside a compressed file for scanning.

Norton Security Scan
Norton offers a scan for vulnerabilities on your computer and scans for viruses on your computer. Currently unknown if Norton will remove detected viruses.

Panda ActiveScan
Panda offers scanning for viruses, spyware and malware. They claim their scanner uses Collective Intelligence (in-the-cloud) to find infections where other scanners cannot. Requires manual removal of infected objects.

Jotti's Malware Scan
Jotti offers a single file scan like VirusTotal with 20 scanners. Only one file may be scanned at once or you can upload multiple files inside a compressed file for scanning.



Update 31/01/2009 - Online scanners added, grammar corrected and added spyware scanner
Update 01/02/2009 - Grammar
Update 03/02/2009 - Improved Description
Update 10/03/2009 - Added scanner
Update 19/03/2009 - Added 2 PC Tools software
Update 21/03/2009 - Grammar
Update 02/07/2009 - Removed Hazard Shield and unlocked thread
Update 29/09/2009 - Added a-sqaured Free and changed wording
Update 07/11/2009 - Added Microsoft Security Essentials, grammar and fixed link



This post has been edited by Davonator: Nov 6 2009, 09:16 PM