It’s almost Christmas and the last thing you need is to be struck by a virus-containing greeting email or ecard.  If you don’t have anti-virus or haven’t bothered to renew that subscription then it’s time to plug that gaping hole, today with any number of free anti-virus solutions on the market.  I’m going to introduce you to one you may not have heard of before.

PCTools is perhaps better known for its Spyware Doctor software which protects and removes any number of spyware threats (but not viruses) and the free version of that only offers scanning and active protection but not removal of threats.

But, it also makes PCTools Anti-Virus free which is slightly limited when compared to the paid version, update downloads come from a slower server and there is no support offered but all the other features are there including, detection and removal of threats as well as the “IntelliGaurd” shield and an email scanner is available as a plugin.

I like trying new things once in a while but there’s also a problem with things being new and that is they haven’t been tested or put around the block, so to speak.

There’s almost no comparative information available on PCTools anti-virus but it is certainly better than nothing.  If you don’t want to make yourself a guinea pig then opt for some tried and true options like AVG Free Edition, AntiVir or Avast Home Edition.

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Related:

Free security software for 64-bit Vista users

Free Vista Sunday, Threatfire provides additional virus protection

Free Security Software for Vista

Free version of SpywareDoctor released for Vista

Free Vista Software Sunday: PC Tools Firewall Plus 3.0 – a free Vista firewall

Entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 10:25 am under Uncategorized.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.