Word on the street has it that Microsoft is preparing to launch a free anti-virus application for Windows. That's not breaking news - we first reported the project back in November 2008, but Reuters is now reporting that a beta version of the software should be available for download "soon."

Microsoft has reportedly been testing the product internally, and expects it to compete with similar utilities from Symantec, McAfee, AVG, Avast, and other security companies. The Microsoft anti-virus app is code-named Morro (after a beach in Brazil), but it will probably have a different name by the time it's released.

The program isn't expected to be competitive with high priced security software, but it should offer the basic anti-virus functionality you would expect from the entry level anti-virus apps from companies that typically charge an annual subscription fee for updates.

You could make the case that Microsoft is aiming to take business away from those companies. But you could also make the case that Microsoft should have been offering better virus scanning and removal tools all along in order to provide better security for Windows.

Keeping your Windows computer virus-free doesn't have to cost you a lot of money. Heck, it doesn't need to cost you any money. There are plenty of good options available for those of you on the hunt for free antivirus software.

Wait - free? Don't companies like Norton make a good business out of selling antivirus protection? Why would someone give it away? Developers of free antivirus solutions like Avast and AVG are counting on a couple of things. First, that you'll like the free offering enough to want to buy an upgraded version of their product. Second, that if enough home users talk about how much they love it that their "computer guy" at work might want to use it on the company's systems.

The free options listed after the break offer the same kind of protection as the boxed software you can buy at the store.

Two things to keep in mind:

First, as with other free software, some of the developers ask for support in the form of a toolbar install. They're all optional, so make sure to un-tick the checkboxes during the install if you don't want the toolbar.

Second, a number of the developers offer a non-free version on the free version's download page via a service called TrialPay. The totally free version is normally on the left, the TrialPay offer on the right - make sure you're clicking the link you actually want.

Some Windows applications are easier to uninstall than others. While some apps just hang out quietly in a Program Files folder and disappear entirely when you run the uninstaller, others write registry entries and hide files throughout your system. And when you run the uninstaller, some of those files and settings remain behind, bogging down your system.

Some of the worst offenders are anti-virus applications. You uninstall one and prepare to load another on your computer only to find that you can't because the first one hasn't been cleanly removed.

AppRemover is a beta application designed specifically to uninstall security software including anti-virus and anti-spyware applications. Just download and run the utility (no installation required) and it will locate any anti-virus software installed on your computer. Click the remove button to uninstall it.

The program recognizes a number of popular security suites from companies including Norton and Symantec and AVG.

[via AppScout]

A number of sites - including Life Rocks 2.0 - are reporting that McAfee is currently offering a free one year license for Virusscan Plus with firewall and anti-spyware protection.

The suite is normally priced at $39.99 for a single pc, but entering the promotional code ****** will apply the discount. Licenses for up to four additional PCs can be added for an extra $10 each. The site is also offering a three system, one year license of McAfee Internet Security 2009 for $34.99 (a $35 discount).

The latest release has gotten fairly good reviews and boasts increased speed as well as improved virus detection and removal. If you're a McAfee fan, this offer is too good to pass up.

The offer expires December 31, 2008.

Update: As indicated in the comments, the offer is only valid for specific people - not the general public. In the interest of saving you some grief, the code and links have been removed.

A few months ago, Grisoft updated its AVG anti-virus suite to version 8 and bundled linkscanning, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit software to boot. Now Grisoft's popular freeware anti-virus application is getting some of the same features. AVG Free 8 is out, and not only does it protect your system from viruses, but you get spyware detection as well.

AVG Free 8 doesn't have all of the features you get in the commercial version of the application. There's no rootkit protection or linkscanner. And there's no email or instant messaging integration. For those features you'll have to shell out $35 or $55 for the standard or "internet security" versions. But as freeware antivirus applications go, AVG is packed with features like real-time protection, daily updates, and complete system scans at regularly scheduled intervals.

Update: As several readers have pointed out in the comments, when you install AVG Free 8, you will likely find a bunch of advanced features like linkscanning and email protection. The AVG web site has a comparison chart showing that these features are included in the commercial version but not the free version. It's not clear if Grisoft is including free trials of these functions or if the chart is wrong.

If you're not sure whether or not it's safe to download that email attachment your nice new friend from Nigeria sent you, odds are you shouldn't. But if you want a second, third, and 14th opinion you might want to forward your email to VirusTotal.

All you have to do is hit the forward button, and send your message to scan@virustotal.com. Change the subject line to SCAN and delete anything in the body of the message you don't feel like sharing. Note that there's a 10MB file size limit, and if you forward a message with multiple attachments, VirusTotal will only check one.

VirusTotal will scan your file using a variety of anti-virus tools including AVG, ClamAV, Kaspersky, and McAfee. When it's done, VirusTotal should send you an email letting you know the status of your file. But it may take a while to get that response if the server is busy.

You can also upload files directly to VirusTotal's main page for a quicker scan. But that only works if you've already got the potentially infected file on your computer.

[via Digital Inspiration]

We were at a major electronics retailer a few days ago, gazing lovingly at the little ASUS Eee. We were not alone. There were three other people poking, prodding, and tapping the tiny machine.

We watched as a couple approached the little machine with a salesman. They jiggled the keys. They ran their fingers on the touchpad. They asked why the user interface wasn't as familiar as their home machine.

"Linux," said the salesman. (He was ever so helpful.)

The next question, "Does it come with anti-virus?"

That certainly stumped the salesman. He answered a non-answer, really. "Linux," he said, "It has Linux anti-virus."

For the record, the Eee, which runs a form of Xandros, does in fact have anti-virus. We are pretty sure the reason for this is two-fold. One, it puts some people's minds at rest to have something called "anti-virus" on their computer. Two, it does isolate and quarantine viruses -- viruses that might not affect Linux itself, but could easily be passed on to a Windows machine.

That's not to say there aren't viruses that can target Linux. Historically, there have been some. And there are browser exploits, of course, that no operating system is completely immune from. However, viruses, as we think of them in the Windows world, are highly unusual.

We wouldn't be surprised if you only know AVG for its free anti-virus software. Along with Avast! Avira, and a few other companies that don't start with the letter A, AVG provides a full-fledged virus protection suite free of charge. But AVG also provides a "professional" version of its software that comes with some advanced features like extra scanning and scheduling options.

For example, the free version only lets you schedule a single virus database update per day, and one computer scan a day. You can schedule multiple events with the Pro version. You also get higher speed downloads with the Pro version.

AVG Pro usually goes for $29.95, but Computeract!ve is giving away free licensed copies through Jan 17, 2008. Good luck getting their download link to work, but fortunately CyberNet has pointed us to a couple of mirrors.

One of our biggest complaints with Windows Vista is that it takes far longer to boot up and shut down than Windows XP installed on an identical system. When Microsoft first announced the feature set for Vista, one of the things they claimed was that you would actually have shorter startup times, but we later discovered that what they meant was that there would be power saving features that would make it easy to put your PC into sleep mode when you're not using it and quickly resume.

But if you're a Vista user that likes to completely shut down your computer, you've probably gotten used to waiting a while for it to start up when you next hit the power button. It turns out that part of the problem might not be with Vista itself, but in 3rd party software that doesn't play well with Vista. For example, although we've long been fans of AVG Free Edition anti-virus software, Ed Bott and Dwight Silverman both suggest that it could have a dramatic impact on Vista startup times.

So we went ahead and uninstalled AVG and lo and behold, our system did seem to boot up more quickly. Of course, there are various ways to measure boot speed. For example, you could stop the timer when you first see your Windows desktop. But for many users, what really counts is the moment when you can start clicking on programs and expect them to respond or the moment when your internet connection is ready, allowing you to launch a web browser, chat program or other online applications. And we have to say, the time between the desktop showing up and our internet connection working has gone up significantly since uninstalling AVG.

Our tests were completely unscientific, so we don't have a lot of numbers to share with you. And our system still takes 80 to 90 seconds to startup with Vista, while we can boot Windows XP on the same system in about half the time. But now we're curious. If you're using AVG on Vista, have you tried uninstalling it to measure the impact on your startup times?

We still highly recommend AVG Free if you're using Windows XP. But if you're using Vista, you might want to check out some free alternatives like Avast!, AntiVir, BitDefender, or ClamWin.

PCLive Security is a full featured security suite for Windows. It helps protect you from viruses, spyware, rootkits, keyloggers, and adware. Oh yeah, and it happens to be free. While there are several other free security applications out there, none come with quite so many features in one package.

PCLive Security includes the ClamAV antivirus engine, a bi-directional firewall, and a pop-up and adware blocker.

There's also a paid version that includes technical support, hard drive maintenance, and file optimization features for $4.95 per month.

PCLive Security runs on Windows 2000/XP/Vista machines. On the downside, the installation process takes forever, and once PCLive Security is up and running it seems to be a bit of a resource hog. Oh yeah, and it will try to uninstall any other anti-virus software on your PC when you run the installer.

[via WebWare]

ZoneAlarm has launched a public beta of a new security tool that basically puts your web browser into a sandbox. Visit sites you know are unsafe, check your bank statements on a computer that you know is infected with viruses and spyware.

We caught up with ZoneAlarm Director of Consumer Product Management John Gable at ShowStoppers in New York, and he told us a bit about the new product. ZoneAlarm ForceField sets up a "virtualized surfing" system, that prevents your PC from downloading malicious code from the web. It also prevents keylogging, blocks spyware, and scans downloads. There's also a private browsing feature that immediately erases all details of your browsing session once you shut down the browser.

ZoneAlarm ForceField is free while in beta, but will cost $30 when it's officially launched next year. The program works with Internet Explorer and Firefox (but not Opera), and is Windows only.

There are a variety of great, free anti-virus programs out there, including ClamWin, Avast! and AVG Free. For the past year or so, this blog's parent company, AOL has also been offering a free anti-virus program, based on powerful Kaspersky software.

For some reason, AOL has decided to stop offering the popular Kaspersky-powered Active Virus Shield, and has instead replaced it with McAfee Virus Scan Plus.

The anti-virus software is still free, although you'll need an AOL screen name in order to download the program. The McAfee suite includes a firewall as well as anti-virus features. But if you're running Windows XP or Vista, you might as well just use your operating system's firewall.

Oh yeah, and don't expect to install McAfee Virus Scan Plus on top of your existing anti-virus software just to take it for a test run. When we tried that, we were told it couldn't run without uninstalling AVG Free.

[via CyberNet ]

The Washington Post's Brian Krebs is reporting that a recent update to Microsoft Anti-Spyware "flags [Norton Anti-Virus] as a password-stealing program and prompts users to remove it." If the user removes the files as instructed by Anti-Spyware, Norton Anti-Virus ceases to function and cannot be reinstalled without some dicey registry editing. Oops. Microsoft says it's working on a fix for the problem.

Ars Technica is reporting that tomorrow Google will be announcing a new video service that will "allow users to buy video content for pre-determined prices," and they're also planning to announce partnerships with CBS and the NBA. Ars has lots of juicy speculation, including whether they'll be offering downloads or only streaming video, if they'll use Flash video as Google Video currently does, and if this means we'll finally see the long-rumored Google Wallet. Google also plans to announce Google Pack, a software bundle which, says Ars, will include the obvious Google software like Desktop Search, Picasa, Google Earth, Google Talk, and more, but also some third party tools including "Google-tweaked" versions of Firefox, Acrobat Reader, Symantec anti-virus software, the malware remover Ad-Aware, multi-network IM client Trillian, and RealPlayer. I agree with Ars: Those last two choices are very curious indeed.

Veteran security and anti-virus company McAfee has agreed to pay a $50 million fine for inflating its revenues by $622 million between 1998 and 2000—131% in 1998 alone. According to Red Herring, "McAfee consented to pay the multimillion-dollar penalty to the SEC without admitting or denying the allegations of the complaint." The SEC will distribute the fine among investors.

[Via Slashdot]