Free personal firewall

ZoneAlarm

Our Rating: (Very Good)

ZoneAlarm provides essential protection for Internet users. Combining the safety of a dynamic firewall with total control over applications Internet use, ZoneAlarm gives rock-solid protection against thieves and vandals. ZoneAlarm makes ironclad Internet security easy-to-use. ZoneAlarm gives you control over the door to your computer. With Stealth Mode enabled, ZoneAlarm`s Firewall renders your computer invisible to the Internet and potential intruders. If you can t be seen, you can t be attacked. Because you tell ZoneAlarm how you use your computer, the firewall only allows traffic that you understand and initiate. ZoneAlarm s firewall provides the ultimate intrusion security for your personal computer. ZoneAlarm also introduces MailSafe which enables users of ZoneAlarm to detect and control Visual Basic Script attachments to emails they receive while ZoneAlarm is running. Free for personal and non-profit use.

Freeware

personal firewall

PC Tools Firewall Plus

Our Rating: (Good)

PC Tools Firewall Plus is a personal firewall that monitors incoming and outgoing traffic on your computer and allows to to create rules to limit and control network connections. The program includes an application level firewall as well as a rule based TCP/IP firewall. The default settings of the firewall will prevent several common attacks while allowing normal internet traffic. You can create your own rules using protocol, port and IP address - however it requires some experience with TCP/IP configuration, as no documentation is provided. The integrated application filtering engine will prompt you each time an unknown program is trying to connect to the Internet, giving you the option to block or allow current and future activities by the same program. Requires free registration after 30 days.

This program automatically installs the Google toolbar unless you opt-out. [?]

Pros: Controls incoming and outgoing traffic

Cons: No documentation; application rules are not verified with file fingerprint; default settings block LAN connectivity;

Freeware

capture HTTP/HTTPS traffic

HTTP Analyzer

Our Rating: (Very Good)

HTTP Analyzer enables you to capture HTTP/HTTPS traffic in real-time, allowing you to analyze, debug and diagnoze web application traffic. The program supports all application that support WININET or Mozila NSS API, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Outlook, Outlook Express etc. It can trace Header, Content, Cookies, Query Strings, Post data, Request and Response Stream, redirection URLs and other information and comes with a requirs builder to generate custom HTTP/HTTPs requests. Other features include Internet Explorer integration, request filtering, cache and cookie clearing, log export to XML and more.

Free Trial, $129.00 to buy

monitor network/internet traffic

AW Ports Traffic Analyzer

monitor network/internet traffic

Our Rating: (Very Good!)

Atelier Web Ports Traffic Analyzer is a network traffic sniffer and logger that allows you to monitor all internet and network traffic on your PC and view the actual content of the packets, showing you exactly what was transmitted and to where. This includes all traffic initiated by software products, web sites etc. The capability to audit what flows in and out of every piece of software is critical for security aware users. Atelier Web Ports Traffic Analyzer providesReal-time mapping of ports to processes (applications and services) and shows the history since boot time of every TCP, UDP or RAW port opened through Winsock. Optionally, AWPTA can also log (up to 500mb) all traffic since the last boot to a file.

Free Trial, $35.50 to buy

monitor global Internet speed and more

AnalogX ITR Client

Our Rating: (Excellent)

AnalogX ITR Client is a small suite of basic network tools, combined with global Internet traffic statistics from internettrafficreport.com. It runs in the system tray and allows you to view the current status of the Internet, regardless of your own connection. You can choose to display global statistics, or specific to your continent. ITR uses a number indicator between 1 and 100, with 100 being the best. If you notice that your connection is slow, however global Internet conditions appear to be fine, you can use the built-in traceroute and graphical ping utilities to further investigate the cause of the problem. The traceroute feature is fast and returns detailed geographical information, including city, of the nodes that your connection travels through to reach a specified web site. The next time you wonder whether your connection is just slow today, or if the Internet is slow in general, you can just look at the ITR tray icon to find out.

Freeware

network traffic monitor

Etherscout

Our Rating: (Good)

EtherScout records and analyzes Internet traffic patterns on your local network. It runs as a service, and can be administered via a web based interface from where you can generate various real-time reports. The reports can reveal which Web sites were recently or most frequently visited, how much network traffic users are generating per day, week, or month and more. In addition, advanced users can write their own report, using HTML and SQL queries - unfortunately, it the software only contains basic documentation and customization is not documented, nor easily accomplished. Etherscout can monitor traffic from all network machines without the need to install any client software, however it should be installed on or close to your Internet gateway.

Free Trial, $49.95 to buy

specialized virus scanner

More screenshots...

McAfee AVERT Stinger

Our Rating:

McAfee AVERT Stinger is a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. It is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but rather a tool to assist administrators and users when dealing with an infected system. It utilizes McAfee scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations. It detects more than 40 viruses, Trojans and variants. The interface is simple and straightforward, just select the drive or folders to scan and click a button. You can choose an action to perform if a virus is detected (delete, prompt, quarantine or rename) and also configure which types of files to scan.

Freeware

find and remove adware and spyware

SUPERAntiSpyware (Free Edition)

Our Rating: (Good!)

SUPERAntiSpyware scans your computer for known Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, HiJackers and many other types of threats, and allows you to remove or quarantine them. It offers daily (manual) definition updates, as well as home page hijack protection and customizable scan options. Furthermore, the program includes a Repair feature that allows you to restore various settings which are often changed by malware programs, but usually not corrected by simply removing the parasite. The free version lacks real-time blocking and protection as well as several other advanced options.

Freeware

virus and malware removal tool

Norman Malware Cleaner

Our Rating:

Norman Malware Cleaner is a standalone virus and malware removal tool that can detect and remove specific malicious software (malware) from your PC. The program does not require installation and does not provide proactive protection from future infections. It is designed to clean a computer that has already been infected.

Freeware

monitor folders for file changes

Directory Monitor

Our Rating: (Good)

Directory Monitor allows you to monitor selected directories or network shares for file changes, modifications, deletions and new files that were added. The program can alert you with a balloon tip from the system tray whenever a file action is detected and you can also choose to execute a custom command for each monitored folder. Other features include an option to exclude specific file types from the monitor and export to text log file.

Freeware

internet traffic control

NetBalancer Free

Our Rating: (Very Good)

NetBalancer enables you to set bandwidth restriction for your Internet application. It allows you to set limits and priorities for upload and/or download speeds on a per-application basis and also block all Internet traffic for selected processes. The program also provides detailed information about all programs that are using the Internet, how much data they have transferred and what IP addresses they are connected to. The free version has some limitations, it only allows you to set restrictions or priorities for up to 5 processes at a time, however this should be sufficient for most users.

Freeware

domain lookup tool

WhoisThisDomain

domain lookup tool

Our Rating: (Very Good)

WhoisThisDomain enables you to view owner and registration information for any domain name. It supports generic domains as well as country code domains, and you can look up multiple domain names at once by pasting the domain names or URLs into the input window. The results can be saved to text files or exported as HTML report. Standalone program, no install needed.

Freeware

Anti malware scanner

Norton Power Eraser

Our Rating: (Fair)

Norton Power Eraser is a standalone tool claims to find and eliminate malware items that are difficult to remove or often overlooked by other spyware scanners. The program uses aggressive methods and is intended as a last resort, after you have exhausted other options. We agree, Norton Power Eraser should definitely be the very last app to use for malware removal because the accuracy of the results is comparable to a shot in the dark. All the programs it found during our test scan were false positives, many of them apparently flagged because the Norton user database did not have sufficient information on the file or there were `some indication` that the file is untrustworthy (unfortunately they don`t disclose what those indications are). Maybe Power Eraser will become more useful as the user community grows and accuracy of the results increases, but until then you should look elsewhere for comprehensive malware detection.

Freeware

analyze disk space usage

GetFolderSize

Our Rating: (Very Good)

GetFolderSize enables you determine the size of folders and sub-folders on your local drives and other storage devices. It produces a report that shows the total size for each folder, the overall percentage of disk space used and the number of files in each folder. You can also drill down and inspect the content of each folder and sort the view by file date, extension, size and other details. GetFolderSize can display sizes in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes, either as rounded values as decimals. Other features include options to print or export a folder list, Unicode support, optional Explorer integration and more.

Freeware

backup tool

Back4Sure

Our Rating: (Good!)

Back4Sure is a simple backup program that allows you to backup all your important files and folders. The program performs incremental backups, so only new or changed files will be copies to the backup location. You can select the folders to be included in the backup with simple check boxes and also choose to include or exclude files based on their extension, age and size. The backups can optionally be stored in compressed format (.zip or .7z). Other features include a cleanup option that will remove obsolete files from your backup set and detailed logging of backup operations. Back4Sure does not come with a built-in scheduling feature but allows you to create shortcuts on the desktop that will automatically run a backup when clicked (or you can used Windows Task Manager to schedule them). The program is free but shows a nag screen every 10 days that asks for a donation.

Freeware

installs popular audio and video codecs

K-Lite Codec Pack (Full)

Our Rating: (Excellent)

K-Lite Codec Pack (Full) includes 99% of all the audio and video codecs you will ever need. Just install this pack, and you will be able to play just about any media file out there. It includes DivX, Xvid, x264, MPEG 1/2,MP3, Monkey`s Audio,Media Player Classic, On2 V6/V7 and many others. The installer lets you choose which codecs to install, or you can use the default profile which installs all of them. K-Lite Codec Pack also provides access to configuration options for each codec whenever available.

Freeware