Best Free Anti-virus Software and Security Services

There are many good choices for paid anti-virus software. But not everyone needs or can afford the cost of paid anti-virus software since the vendors usually charge an annual fee to use their software. Here is a list of free, high-quality anti-virus software products that you can use and feel reasonably safe. In my experiences, they do not provide the robust protection of their pay-for-use cousins, but if your surfing is relatively safe, then they should be adequate.

We have also included a list of links to sites that offer free online scans. Generally these scans can detect viruses, trojans, and other types of malware, but it is not always that simple to remove the malware and viruses once they are on your machine. So, full-time, real-time protection is always advisable. These online scan/removal systems should be considered a backup measure to your normal real-time protection on your machine. When using this and all other online security products, please remember and be advised that the cleaning tools are not always comprehensive or even able to remove the viruses. And, since some anti-virus tools are more aggressive, double check any recommended removals using Google or other AV products before proceeding with any removals or deletions of files.

Finally, we have added some links to valuable sites and forums that test and rate anti-virus software, host forums for security discussion, and provide other valuable links and news reports relating to security.

Free Anti-virus Software

AVG Anti-virus Software

AVG Free Anti-Virus Software is one of the most popular anti-virus software packages out there. It is very light weight so that it can run on machines with limited amount of memory. Also, it is favored by those who play games and require a anti-virus package that will not interfere with the play yet still provide a good level of protection.

Avast Anti-virus Software

Along with AVG, Avast is the other very popular free anti-virus software package. It provides equivalent protection and has been around for a very long time.

Avira Anti-virus software

Avira comes in a free and paid version. The paid version is a very well regarded anti-virus tool. The free version does not have all of the features of the paid version, but in general has performed better in anti-virus tests compared with the free versions of AVG and Avast. However, this additional protection comes at a cost. Avira does impact performance more than the lightweight AVG and Avast packages so game players may find it more intrusive. Also, Avira’s customer and software support for its free version is quirky and you may find yourself at times without an up-to-date database or any kind of customer support. Also, it is a pain to remove from a machine once it is on it. Despite, all of these negatives, you may still opt for Avira in order to avail yourself of it’s robust anti-virus/malware protection capabilities.

Free Online Anti-virus Scans

BitDefender Free Online Virus Scan

Bitdefender sells one of the most highly regarded pay-for-use anti-virus software packages. It also offers a comprehensive free online anti-virus scan. You can use this scan when you suspect viruses, trojans, or other types of malware (more…)

Free Dating Sites

Plentyoffish Free Dating Site

PlentyofFish is the original free dating site and it has grown so much in popularity that it is usually ranked either #2 or #3 in dating sites. You might expect that a free dating site will be full of all kinds of junk, but this site is kept clean and useful – mostly because members police the site themselves. The user interface is bare bones. You can fill out a profile, do some searching and matching, and view some contorted photos of your potential date. You have many options concerning the type of date/match you are looking for so if you are just looking for a friend or activity partner (or other type of engagements) you can specify. You can also filter out all those that you are are not interested in. The large database of active members makes this an excellent alternative to the paid sites and for my money every bit as good.

OkCupid Free Dating Site

OKCupid is a newer free dating site with a more modern look and feel. What differentiates this site from other free and paid dating sites is the way it matches up members. Members are asked to answer dozens of questions concerning their values, lifestyle choices, interests, and attitudes. OKCupid uses a proprietary algorithm to combine all of this data and more (they also use data from your profile) to come up with a percentage (%) match. It is a darn good system since it not only matches interests but also values. I like it. OKCupid has its own IM system which is nice when you want to have an evening conversation. Plentyoffish does not have this capability. The size OKCupid’s membership does not seem to be as large as Plentyoffish but it is growing and a great site to visit if you are looking for alternatives to Match, eHarmony and Yahoo personals.

Free to Play Online Shooter Games

Here are four sites that you might want to visit for free shooter games. Make sure you click on the post link to view all four sites.

Free Shooter Game Links

IGN, one of the biggest Game Networks, has just released its list of 10 Free Shooter Games that you can play for free. The list includes: Alliance of Valiant Arms, America’s Army 3, Battlefield Heroes, Combat Arms, Quake Live, Salvage 2, Tremulous, Urban Terror, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, and World of Padman.

Make Use Of Free Online Shooter Games

Last year MakeUseOf.com put together their 5 top picks for online shooter games. The list includes: Fear Combat, Gunz the Duel, Warsow, Nexuiz, and War Rock. Strong contenders that did not make the top 5 list are: America’s Army, Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, and Mono.

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New Free Internet TV Episode Guide: Clicker

Clicker is a brand new free TV links site that aims to be a complete guide to Internet Television. Clicker maintains an up-to-date catalog of all broadcast programming online, along with TV-quality Web originals and delivers them in an organized manner so that the visitor can easily discover what TV programming is available to watch online, where to watch it, and what’s worth watching. Clicker combines a directory, a search engine, wiki, an entertainment guide, and a DVR capability with a massive database directory that contains more than 450,000 episodes, from over 6,000 shows, from over 1,200 networks, tens of thousands of movies, and 50,000 music videos from 20,000 artists.

Free Online MMORPGs Links

Free and Popular MMORPGs

Here is a list put together by Earth Eternal of seven of the most popular and free Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). The author feels that some are even better than the pay to play games. His list includes: Atlantica Online, Cabal Online, Runes of Magic, Rappelz Online, Fiesta Online, Runescape.

Free Online MMORPG ONRPG.org

ONRPG is probably the most popular MMPORPG site with reviews and ratings for all free MMPORG games, the latest news, and an active forum.

Free MMORPG and MMO Directory MMOHub

MMOHub is a large and comprehensive site with news, reviews, directory listings, and community forums for Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) and MMORPG games including most available free online games.

3 Links for Free and Essential Windows 7 Apps

20 Essential Free Windows 7 Apps

Techradar is right out of the gate with a new list of 20 Essential and Free Windows 7 apps. Some of the standout apps on this list are: GIMP and Paint.net (Photoshop replacements, VLC Media Player (a play all format media player), Handbrake (a video converter), Ditto (a universal copy/paste utility), Recuva (a file recovery utility) and Open Office (a popular office suite). Visit the site for the rest of their recommendations.

7 Essential and Free Window 7 Apps

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes listed his 7 Essential and Free Windows 7 Apps on Zdnet. Some of his favorites are on Techradar’s list but he also includes: 7-Zip file compression utility, CDBurnerXP disc burning utility, TrueCrypt data encryption utility, and Windows Virtual PC which allows you to run multiple versions of Windows as well as Linux. Another nice list to look over.

5 Essential and Free Windows 7 Apps

Maximum PC offers 7 Free and Essential Windows 7 Apps for a desktop makeover. Have fun customizing your desktop to suit your taste!