:: Frags' Security Review :: Useful Utilities

Link	Program	Developer	Description	BC	Vista?	Ease	Cost
	Adaware 2007 Personal	Lavasoft	One of the best Spyware applications, Quick scan and thorough, can be set to quick scan mode or thorough scan mode, recommend doing thorough scan on 1st scan and every so often, but doing quick scans in between. Can run very well with Spybot S&D (See Below) for complete protection. PROS: Thorough scanning, Easy to fetch updates, Lot of support, Easy & Good looking interface. Lots of add-on plugins availiable for more power. CONs: Can sometimes be slow, No resident protection (Except in pay for version)	YES	YES	*****	Premium Versions Availiable
	Antivir Free	Avira (Formerly H+BEDV)	A great free antivirus program which when all else fails can often weed out viruses and trojans PROS: Very thorough, easy to understand interface, Audible warnings CONs: Slow scanning, Updates can be slow to download, Clunky looking	YES	YES	*****	Premium Versions Availiable
	Avast! Antivirus	Alwil	A well known antivirus utility. Very good reviews and easy to use. It also offers P2P and Instant Messaging protection, something which a lot of commercial programs to not offer. PROS: Thorough scanning. Nice interface. P2P Protection. CONs: Can be a bit slow. Annoying tray icon.	YES	YES	*****	Premium Versions Availiable
	AVG Free	Grisoft	One of the fastest and thorough antivirus applications out there. Being free it does one of the best jobs around for general virus protection. PROs: Very thorough, easy to use interface, great resident protection CONs: Sometimes (rarely) throws up false positives after removal. Does not integrate visually with Vista, but thats a minor issue.	YES	YES	*****	Premium Versions Availiable
	AVG AntiSpyware	Grisoft	Formerly Ewido Anti-malware. Very powerful anti-malware/Spyware program PROs: Can get some trojans and spyware infections non removable by other means, Handy to use alongside other programs. CONs: Free verion only gives 30 day real-time protection, Not as thorough as other programs.	YES	YES	*****	No auto-update or realtime protection in free version. Premium Versions Availiable
	AVG Internet Security	Grisoft	Although most of the utilities hare are free, this one you will need to stup up the cash for. AVG IS is an excellent compined security suite, which totally whips the pants off Norton or McAfee. It contains AVG Antivirus, AVG Firewall, AVG AntiSpyware and Antispam all in one interface. PROs: All in one interface. Easy to use and update CONs: Slightly slower scanning due to scanning for viruses and spyware. Not free, but cheaper than Norton/McAfee.	YES	YES	*****	Worth the money.
	BugOff	Merijn	This application can close some of the inbuilt exploits that can allow Internet Explorer to infect itself with spyware. PROs: Small file size, easy to use. CONs: Does not remove infections, only protects against them before they install! IE6 Tested - NOT IE7	YES	NO	*****
	CCleaner	CCleaner	CCleaner (CrapCleaner) is a very handy free utility to clean a range of files from your PC such as temporary files, temp files, browser installer cache, cookies, offline pages and much more. PROs: Beats Windows Cleanup Util, Very thorough cleaning, Easy to use interface. Faster than Disk Cleanup on clogged drives. CONs: Not found any yet!	YES	YES	*****
	CloneMaxx	Convar Data Recovery Specialists	CloneMaxx is a powerfull and easy to use drive cloning tool. It does a sector by sector copy of the drive so it will clone all partitions and the drive structure from one drive to another. I have personally used it to copy the recovery hidden partition from one PC to another when the partition became damaged. It worked well and recovery was possible from then on. It is fairly quick too for the job it does. PROs: Easy to use, Can create a bootable floppy or CD, fairly fast cloning CONs: Screen response slow, Command line interface.	NO	N/A	*****	Data recovery company offer data management for working drives free, offer a data recovery service for failed drives!
	CPUStab Test	Jouni Vouro	Easy to use CPU stability test. Can do hard stress tests, CPU warming tests and memory tests, Tests run however long needed. PROs: Easy to use, shows you what it is doing. CONs: Interface not pretty, but who cares.. otherwise none.	YES	YES	*****
	CWS Shredder	Trend Micro (Intermute)	Gets rid of a load of those annoying CoolWebSearch trojans that are difficult to remove PROs: Most thorough scanning for CWS variants, VERY quick CONs: Only scans CWS, updates not as regular as liked	YES	NOT KNOWN	*****
	e-Maxx	Convar Data Recovery Specialists	Although Convar is a data recovery specialist they offer e-Maxx as a program to permananly erase hard drives do data is non-recoverable. This is useful if you are selling a computer and you do not want data to be possibly recovered by new owner, also for business who need to get rid of sensitive documents without leaving trace. This erases the WHOLE hard drive to be totally blank (formatting does not leave drive blank, data can still be recovered [See PC Inspector File Recovery]). Note you have to boot off a boot disk and make sure you select correct hard drive! PROs: Excellent MOD grade data deletion routines, Fast data deletion (up to 3Gb per minute on basic deletion). Drive format independent, works with drives from Windows, Unix, MacOS ect. Bootable floppy or CD. CONs: Bootable media only, can only delete whole drive, cannot be used in windows from a second hard drive.	Failed to boot	N/A	*****	Data recovery company offer data management for working drives free, offer a data recovery service for failed drives!
	HijackThis	Merijn	Allows you to see what is running on startup, whats embedded in your browser and what plugins and hosts are installed. Advanced Users PROs:* Very powerful way to look into what computer is doing and what is loading. Can VERY easily remove or disable offending programs. CONs: Not for beginners, Need to know what you are removing as it will not tell you, it only scans for hijack methods NOT actual programs.	YES	NOT Officially	*****
	Homesearch Remove	Olar	Removes the HomeSearch series trojans/Spyware which is hard to remove with normal scanning methods. PROs: VERY VERY fast, tells you what its removed CONs: Often finds false infections (8 files) but nothing to worry about, it gets them if it finds them!	YES	NO	*****	Donations Recommended!
	Kill2Me	Merijn	A very effective removal tool for the Look2Me Spyware Parasite that infects Windows 95, 98 & ME. PROs: Easy to use & effective CONs: Only scans for Look2Me	NO	NO	*****
	Microsoft Windows Defender.	Microsoft	Microsofts foray into spyware removal. It is quite thorough and protects users in background. For a Microsoft effort not at all bad! Derived from Giant Antispyware who Microsoft bought out. PROs: Easy to use, Good Interface, Easy to update CONs: Not as thorough, Slow, Background scans slow PC, Can miss some obvious infections. Beta Software	YES	Built In	*****	Beta Test Software. May not be free on release!
	PC Inspector File Recovery	Convar Data Recovery Specialists	PC Inspector File Recovery enables you to retrieve lost data from a drive which has had a drive structure failure (not physical) or deleted files. It has a simple but easy to use interface where you can browse live and deleted/inaccessable file and see the status (good = chance of recovery, Poor = File is most likely damaged beyond repair but some useful information may be extracted.) You will need another hard drive or a compatable large capacity Data Key to retrieve files to. YOU MUST NOT ATTEMPT TO RECOVER DATA TO SAME DRIVE YOU ARE TRYING TO RETRIEVE DATA FROM, THIS WILL CAUSE FURTHER PERMANENT DATA LOSS!. PROs: Fast, Comprehensive data recovery, Easy to use interface, point and click data recovery, multiple drive browse modes. Data recovery comparable to well known recovery software if not better! CONs: I have not found any as yet!	YES	NOT KNOWN	*****	Data recovery company offer data management for working drives free, offer a data recovery service for failed drives!
	PC Inspector Smart Recovery	Convar Data Recovery Specialists	PC Inspector Smart Recovery is like the file recovery application above but it can retrieve lost data of many types of Media cards as used in digital cameras, organisers & mp3 players. All you need is the media card and a USB or Internal PC card reader for your card type. It may work with cameras/devices that mount as removable drives (Ie show drive icon in Windows Explorer) but recommend using card reader. It can write data to any folder specified on hard drive. A great way to retrieve Photos when you inadvertantly format the card! YOU MUST NOT USE THE CARD AGAIN AFTER DELETING/FORMATTING BEFORE ATTEMPTING RECOVERY AS DATA WILL BE PERMANENTLY LOST IF YOU WRITE DATA TO IT! PROs: Very easy to use, Simple interface, Powerful ability to recover data from card. CONs: Not found any!	YES	NOT KNOWN	*****	Data recovery company offer data management for working drives free, offer a data recovery service for failed drives!
	Pocket Killbox	Option^ Explicit Software Solutions	An advanced tool that allows you to kill off and remove processes, has the option of killing of related processes and registry & startup entries. PROs: Powerful way to end processes that cannot be ended in Windows Task Manager CONs: Advanced usage only, you need to know location of file on drive.	YES	NO	*****
	Spybot S&D 1.4	Safer Networking Ltd. (PepiMK)	Spybot Search & Destroy is one of the top Spyware scanners out there with it's easy to use scan, resident protection, update facility, & some useful Advanced tools such as Host File scan, Process Overview, Browser Plugin Management and much more! I would personally twin this with Adaware and run them together for great protecton. Warning Advanced mode MAY be dangerous for basic users but basic mode is completely safe, you have to physically change between modes. PROs:* Easy To Use Interface, Thorough, Skinnable, Powerfull advanced tools. Great resident protection. Quick Scans CONs: Not prettiest interface but does not affect usability.	YES	YES, but more coming in 1.5	Basic Mode *** Advanced ***	Donations Recommended!
	Spyware Blaster	Javacool Software	Spyware Blaster is not a spyware scanner, all it does it it helps protect you from infection in first place, it can protect Internet Explorer and Mozilla/Firefox Browsers and stop Spyware/Browser Hijacks installing PROs: Very Effective barrier to stop things installing, Runs quietly in background with very low hit on resources. CONs: No Autoupdate in free version.	YES	YES With A Hack.	*****	Subscription Version Availiable for Auto Update
	StartupList	Merijn	A very handy startup list which is more comprehensive than MSconfig. This will also replace the missing MSconfig not shipped with Windows 95/NT/2000. PROs: Very small file, more advanced than MSConfig CONs: None found yet!	YES	NO	*****
	Sygate Personal Firewall Standard	Symantec formerly: Sygate Inc.	Sygate makes a great range of professional grade security software for business use. They offer a basic free version to home users which is still very powerful (albeit not as configurable as the professional variants). It is very easy to configure and friendly prompts warn you about programs accessing internet. Very easy to add programs to exception lists. Also has handy traffic history graph. Please note that Symantec has now bought Sygate and no longer offers this for download. I do not recommend ANY Norton product, but if you can obtain the last version of Sygate PFS, then its still recommended! PROs: Very fast, no noticable computer slowdown, easy to use & configure. Easy to update online. CONs: Can sometimes crash leaving it unable to configure programs trying to add themselves after install/update (reboot easily fixes this)	YES	NO	*****	*NO OFFICAL PRODUCT AVIALIABLE ANYMORE.
	TaskManager EX	Zoltan Csizmadia	An advanced tool that hooks onto the existing Windows NT/2000/XP task manager allowing more options and identification of processes within the Task Manager window. PROs: Allows advanced viewing of current tasks, Gives more advanced options not availiable in standard Task Manager. CONs: Needs to ba manaully run (or set as a start process). Makes Task Manager look a bit messy.	YES	NO	*****
	Winsock XP Fix	Option^ Explicit Software Solutions	Winsock XP Fix is a very handy tool to fix internet connections damaged on Windows XP by spyware which hooks into Winsock & Hosts files, such as New.Net, Viruses trojans and dialers. PROs: Very quick and easy to use CONs: None Found so far!	YES	NO	*****
	Winsock2 Fix	Tom Kynch	Winsock2 Fix is a very handy utility to fix damage done to Windows 98/ME by viruses or spyware. In most cases it can fix that damage. PROs: Likely to fix damage when all else fails CONs: Command Interface, May need Windows CD handy to complete fix, without it this tool will leave windows with missing components!	NO	NO	*****
	XTeq X-Setup Pro 6 (Free) XQDC X-Setup Pro 9 (Pay)	XQDC Ltd (XTeq)	There are currently 2 Versions of X-Setup availiable, Xteq X-Setup 6 and X-Setup Pro 7 (by XQDC) From 7 onwards X-Setup is no longer Freeware but its powerful extra features are worthy of a mention here. Xsetup 6 is still availiable but has less options. 6 is adequate for home users but has less support now. X-Setup allows you to change hidden settings of windows to customise and or secure your windows & other common programs. It is fully plugin based so any updates in programs O/S are covered. X-Setup Pro 6 Download HERE (Free Version) PROs: Very good plugin support, lots of options can be changed down to colour of BSOD. Free CONs: Not as much support for this product as for the newer versions. Unlikely to be updated again. For advanced users only! X-Setup Pro 7 (Not Free) PROs: Very good plugin support, exceptional amount of options can be changed down to colour of BSOD. More support than X-Setup 6 CONs: No longer free. But extra support and options make it worth it. For advanced users only!	YES	XS 6 NO PRO 9 YES	*****	X-Setup Pro 6 X-Setup Pro 9
	ZoneAlarm	Check Point Formerly Zone Labs	Zonealarm is one of the best known free firewall solutions and has been around for a long time. The product has matured into a powerful and easy to use program. The interface is easy to understand and the network traffic meter very handy to see what your connection is doing. PROs: Very easy to understand and update, Easy connection meter in Systray/Notification Area. CONs: Can sometimes be a pain to configure for internal home Network, it sometimes blocks internal computers and applications out but fine on single PC.	YES	YES	*****	Premium Versions Availiable

*Free = Personal/Home/Non Commercial Use Unless otherwise stated on product website!

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