What is a good suite of free, open-source anti-malware software for a PC running Windows XP Home?


My PC slowed up quite a bit and Dell sold me on McAfee. It helped some, but my PC, running Windows XP Home is still too slow.

I have heard the some computer shops have shopped the open-source market and have put together suites of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-trogan-horse, software etc.

Is there is a good combination of open source code that is bettter than Norton, McAfee, and PCCillian?
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I prefer Mac, but may have an opportunity to do some programming on both Mac and PC.

I was considering changing to Linux, but it seems that Linux, only having 1% market share for desktop computers hasn’t enough market share yet to be viable as a personal productivity computer.

I hear that Linux is quite good as being the OS for servers.
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I looked at the ratings on all of the commercial anti-malware software on both Consumer Reports and on amazon.com and it seems like all of the commercial products get about 3 of 5 stars, so I agree with the answer that nothing is 100% effective. It seems that every commercial solution is mediocre.
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Posted in Security |

7 Responses

  1. abed-nego e Says:
    March 7th, 2009 at 11:47 am

    I do not know if it is open source but I know it is free,

  2. wal_tico2003 Says:
    March 9th, 2009 at 10:34 am

    None is 100% secure, think to change a Mac or Linux

  3. Jay R Says:
    March 12th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Try this combination of free softwares:
    Avira antivir or Moon secure Antivirus
    Threatfire free
    Spywareblaster
    Ghostwall free

  4. Heroic Zach Says:
    March 13th, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    There’s a lot of good free stuff out there, but open source, no. I do volunteer work for a place that refurbs computers to be donated or sold at low cost to families and organizations in need, and there they use software that’s free, but not open source, on every computer that goes out (an image just gets ghosted onto each machine with this software included).

    The only open source product is ClamWin (http://clamwin.com/ ), an AntiVirus.

    The others are:

    - AVG Free AntiVirus (http://free.grisoft.com/ )
    - Comodo Personal Firewall (http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/ )
    - Spybot Search Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/ )
    - Lavasoft AdAware Free (http://lavasoft.com/ )

    And, of course, if you want to call it an anti-malware product:

    - Mozilla Firefox (http://getfirefox.com/ ) - now it has a built in virus scanner and increased security in version 3.0!

    Yes, that’s the lot of it. All of that’s free forever, and will keep you safe if you keep the products updated and make sure to scan about once a week for baddies :).

    Good luck!

  5. jibbarjabar Says:
    March 16th, 2009 at 5:13 am

    The only open source anti-virus program for Windows, AFAIK, is Clamwin:

    Honestly, it is not very good.

    With new malware being released every day, it’s hard for a volunteer workforce to keep up with these new threats.

    I suggest that you look into Kaspersky or Eset NOD 32. Not cheap but excellent.

  6. 3rMny8G Says:
    March 17th, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    go here:http://toptenantispywareviews.com/
    It lists top 10 the best and latest anti-spywares reviews in 2008.
    You can download one and scan your system.
    All can be trusted.

  7. ImMoRtAlDeAtH Says:
    March 18th, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    For a TOTAL computer security, you will need the following four things.

    1. Antivirus
    2. Anti-Adware or Anti-Spyware
    3. Firewall
    4. Internet Traffic Monitor and related Security Suite

    I have posted the top ten antiviruses, , anti spywares and firewalls along with their links.

    ————TOP TEN ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARES——————–

    1. Kaspersky
    2. BitDefender
    3. ESET Nod32
    4. AVG Anti-Virus
    5. F-Secure Anti-Virus
    6. Trend Micro
    7. McAfee VirusScan
    8. Norton AntiVirus
    9. Avast Antivirus
    10.Panda Antivirus

    If you want free, then I would recommend AVG or AVAST.
    Choose one among them yourself.

    ———–TOP TEN ANTISPYWARES—————————-

    1. Spy Sweeper
    2. CounterSpy
    3. Spyware Doctor
    4. SUPER AntiSpyware Professional
    5. ZoneAlarm Anti-Spyware
    6. Ad-Aware Pro
    7. CA Anti-Spyware
    8. AntiSpy
    9. Spyware BeGone
    10.Maxion Spy Killer

    ———–TOP TEN FIREWALLS——————————–

    1. ZoneAlarm
    2. Outpost Firewall Pro
    3. COMODO Firewall
    4. eConceal Pro
    5. Webroot Desktop Firewall
    6. Injoy Firewall
    7. SurfSecret Firewall
    8. Armor2net Personal Firewall
    9. BlackICE PC Protection
    10.BullGuard

    THIS IS JUST THE REVIEW I MADE WITH MY EXPERIENCE. IT MAY DIFFER PEOPLE TO PEOPLE!!!

    PLEASE NOTE TAHT THIS DATA MAY CHANGE AFTER FEW WEEKS!!!

    If you wanna follow what I do myself, get Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 (recently released) it has all the four security functions. Go and get it.
    That will help you the best. You can get one year free subscription for a genuine license key too from these sites. [100% genuine]

    Good Luck fren!!!