Astalavista Top 10 Freeware Tools
Astalavista Security Group has a beta page up that lists top freeware products in various categories including Data Recovery, Anti Virus-Tools, Firewall and IDS, and Anti-Spyware. The list contains some of the freeware tools that I already reviewed here on Ghacks but also several that may be new to you. So, a mix of popular applications that everyone knows and some lesser known apps that you may find useful as well.
Page loads a little bit slow but it's worth the wait. I will check some of the tools out that I did not try out until now and if I find a gem review it here at ghacks.net.
Update: Astalavista has changed quite a bit in recent years. The security tools download page is for instance no longer available on the site. It now displays a list of security news taken directly from the web site's start page. The top navigation links to a tools section, but those are online tools like converters, dns tools, encryption and decryption utilities or information gathering apps.
I suggest you take a look at alternatives. One of them is Softpedia's Security page that is listing security related tools in eight different categories (decrypting and decoding, encrypting, firewall, keylogger and monitoring, lockdown, password managers and generators, secure cleaning, and security related).
A click opens the actual program listing sorted by release date and update, whichever is newer. Please note that the page displays both free and commercial applications. Softpedia marks that under license directly on the listing pages, which makes it easy to find the freeware programs among the selection.
Another option is the Security List over at Techsupport Alert which offers extensive lists of programs that are considered to be among the best in their respective field. The list is divided into 25 different categories, from realtime protection and HIPS to vulnerability scanning and sandboxing.
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That’s a pretty good list. The only thing I would have changed in the Anti-Virus section is the “McAfee AVERT Stinger 2.5.8” stand alone AV program. It does not scan for all of the virii in the McAfee database only a select few.
A better one would have been Trend Micro’s “SysClean” program that uses the same database file as PC-Cillin and the Cooperate version.
The How To page is located at:
[http://kb.trendmicro.com/solutions/search/main/search/solutionDetail.asp?solutionID=25991
Click on bullet #2 to download the program and bullet #3 for the latest database file (Virus Pattern File), pick the .zip file.
I use this program nearly daily as I refuse to put any customers computer on our network until it has had a full AV check. I put it on a small 32meg thumbdrive for any computer with USB or burn it to a 50Meg CDR if that doesn’t work.
The first thing that jumps out at me is their “Top 10 Anti Virus-Tools” list. They list the ‘McAfee AVERT Stinger 2.5.8’ as a good stand-alone AV program. In my opinion it’s not much of a scanner. It only looks for a small list of virii instead of the full McAfee definition DB.
If you want a good non-install AV scanner take a look at Trend Micro’s “SysClean” that uses the full Trend Micro DB and it’s free to boot.
You can find the documentation page at:
[http://kb.trendmicro.com/solutions/search/main/search/solutionDetail.asp?solutionID=25991]
The direct download is at:
[http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/products/tsc/sysclean.com]
and you will need the current Virus Pattern File at:
[http://www.trendmicro.com/download/viruspattern.asp]
(pick the zip file).