Internet Safety Resources

Security Software Recommendations

The following lists are recommendations for security software for your personal computer. This software will help you keep your computer free from viruses, worms, adware and spyware. You should have one item from each of the following categories installed on your computer.

NOTE: It's very important to keep your anti-virus, anti-adware and firewall software up-to-date so be sure to install any updates that are released (the software should automatically notify you about updates in most cases).

1. Firewall Software

If you have Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed, you already have a built-in firewall and do not need this. If not, we recommend the free ZoneAlarm from www.zonelabs.com (be sure to just download the basic ZoneAlarm free edition and not one of the packages you have to purcase).

2. Anti-Virus Software

Note: If you currently have a virus on your computer, it may be difficult to remove it. You may have to actually purchase a physical copy of Grisoft's Anti-virus or Norton Anti-virus so that you can boot from the CD and remove the virus before it loads into memory. (Be sure to power your computer down before booting from the CD!)

• AVG Antivirus by Grisoft: free.grisoft.com (free)
• Norton AntiVirus: www.symantec.com ($)

3. Adware & Spyware Protection

In this category, it wouldn't hurt anything to use more than one of the following programs but you can probably get by with just the Microsoft AntiSpyware software.

• Microsoft AntiSpyware: Download from Microsoft.com (free)
• Ad Aware (SE Personal Edition): www.lavasoftusa.com (free)
• Spybot Search and Destroy: Download from pcworld.com (free)

4. Secure Web Browser

We recommend that you use the Mozilla Firefox web browser because it is more secure than Internet Explorer. Download Mozilla Firefox from www.mozilla.org.