It can get confusing when those who seem to know a lot about this topic use terms like “antivirus” and “malware” interchangeably. Or maybe you’re wondering why you need a firewall if you have antivirus. To the casual reader, these terms can be confusing and certainly off-putting. This is why so many people rely on paid solutions. And money in the pockets of those companies.

In the next few minutes, I’ll lift that veil of confusion and allow you to make decisions for yourself that will protect your PC from those who might try to harm it for fun or profit.

First: what is a PC security suite?

A security suite made up of six elements:

1.virus

2. firewalls

3. A malware detector

4. A website malware or phishing detector

5. A software uninstaller

6. A cache cleaner and leftover removal software

Let’s take a look at each of these aspects in turn.

The best free antivirus

There are currently 5 key players when it comes to free antivirus software providers: Avast, AVG, Microsoft Security Essentials, Avira, and Panda.

Avast is my favorite of the bunch. The first install was a bit frustrating as it took a long time and it crashed a couple of times, but it was worth it in the end. In many of the other reports online, I found this to be a very well-regarded solution. In fact, it won bronze in WebUser’s “Best Antivirus 2015.” Not bad at all, considering that it was the only free antivirus that was considered worthy of inclusion among the paid competitors.

Special Notice:

When I first tried Panda, the cloud-based antivirus, I wasn’t very impressed. He did his best to upload all my files to the cloud and make them inoperable on my PC. Now, two years later, it has matured and does a very remarkable job with very light software. It’s cloud-based, so it doesn’t clog up your laptop.

free firewall

A firewall is used to protect your home network, not just an individual PC. Windows already comes with its own Firewall, but if you want real control over what your computer sends and receives online, Glasswire is awesome!

It’s a network and threat monitor all in one, and can even tell you what your laptop has been accessing online in your absence (or what apps they’ve accessed).

You’ll get a notification the first time a software accesses the Internet so you can see if it’s intentional or nasty.

Glasswire will even monitor your bandwidth and Internet usage for you. Hurry up, Glasswire has said this won’t be free forever!

malware security

Contrary to many people’s ideas about an antivirus, it is only the first line of defense and does not always guarantee a trouble-free laptop. From time to time it is important to run a malware scan on your machine. This is to find malicious software that you downloaded by mistake, or that got past your antivirus because you didn’t know about it at the time.

The best of the free options, in the opinion of most people based on my research (and my own experience) is the free MalwareBytes anti-malware.

When using this program, always update it beforehand as it is constantly being updated to combat new threats. Also, don’t delete anything unless you do your homework on what you recommend removing.

Always remove a Trojan.

Web Link Malware Detector

When browsing search results, it is not always possible to avoid infected sites that will harm your laptop just by visiting them. Fortunately there is a way to know whether to visit a link or avoid it!

There are two contenders for this section and they are both equally good.

1. The Network of Trust

2. Avast Online Security for Chrome

Both give a green light (either a circle or a tick) next to a safe link in search results, or an orange or red if the link from the site is unreliable. The only difference is that Web of Trust has fewer users to report malware, so I would trust Avast more.

Removal of software and leftover files

From time to time you’ll need to remove old or unwanted software and the best uninstaller I’ve found that balances the amount of leftover files removed with speed of operation is iObit’s pretty excellent Advanced Uninstaller.

Take care when performing deeper cleanups to ensure that the registry files you remove are part of the unwanted software. However, this has not been the same problem with iObit as with other uninstallers that are more likely to make mistakes. Deleting bad registry files can be fatal for your PC or laptop!

CLEANER

CCleaner is short for “junk cleaner” and is used to clear cookies, temporary files, and all sorts of junk files that, when they build up on your machine over time, slowly drag down its performance.

It is true that I have the professional version of this, but the free version should not be taken lightly. In fact, there’s little more to the pro version than extras like auto-cleanup and auto-timing. However, at less than $20 for a lifetime license and the ability to use the same license for every laptop in the home, that’s a pretty low price to pay.

defragmenter

Check out Defraggler from the same folks, to help defrag your machine on a monthly basis so that after you delete files, what’s left is kept in one piece for smoother hard drive operation.

There you have it: a complete suite of absolutely free software that will rival any paid antivirus security suite!

Enjoy the savings and peace of mind.