Due to the large amount of viruses, trojans, spyware and other such 'nasties' in general circulation on the Internet, the following page is provided so that you may better protect your PC, your information and your family against many of these threats, thus reducing the possibility that those using the computer will be exposed to such content.
Some of the links below are free for individual use, others are fairly cheap (£25-50) depending on the packages offered. (None are provided by or linked to the preschool)
Note that many computers are already affected by one or more 'nasties' so don't be surprised if you find something if you install one of the listed products. Recent research shows that more than 80% of computers are affected by one or more of these issues
Some of the files may be reasonably large, therefore a broadband connection is recommended, dial-up will just take a little longer but don't be put off by the download.
Please Note Many products found on the Internet claim to be free anti-virus, anti-spyware or similar, but in fact they are actually spyware and viruses other products have very similar names to those listed on this page, so take care when downloading
The following links are not maintained by Chawton Pre-School
We are therefore not responsible for their content or problems that may occur by the use or mis-use of the software listed. Each link will open in a new window so that you can keep this one open.
This stops other people on the Internet connecting to your computer and accessing it and the data on it.
Windows XP Service Pack 2 includes a basic firewall, better options are listed below
Many modern computers come bundled with Symantec Internet Security, if this is installed then do not install any other products if the Symantec product is up-to-date..
| Zone Alarm
Free Zone Alarm |
Zone Alarm (not the PRO version) is free and adequate in most instances. The PRO option is not free but has extra protection features. The free version can be found here |
| Norton Internet Security 2008 | This all-in-one product provides anti-virus, firewall and spyware features but costs about £40 |
This detects self-replicating programs that try to pass themselves to other people to spread, as normal biological viruses do. This software detects and removes them.
You must keep the definition files up to date, if you are 2 months out of date, then you are not protected.
There is no anti-virus software built into Windows.
| AVG Anti-Virus | This is a free anti-virus product for home and personal use. |
| Symantec Anti-Virus | This all-in-one product provides anti-virus, firewall and spyware features but costs about £40 |
| McAfee Anti-Virus | Anti-Virus product, costs £28 for the basic package that covers two PC's |
| McAfee Internet Security | All-in-one product, costs £50, provides firewall and anti-virus |
You can check your anti-virus software is working properly by giving it an industry recognised 'test sequence', which isn't a virus, this is known as the EICAR test string, you can download it here. If you can download this file without any error messages then your anti-virus software isn't working. If your anti-virus software detects EICAR, then it is working properly.
This detects known 'spyware' and 'malware', Spyware spys on what you are doing on your PC and feeds this to other people on the Internet. Malware is malicious software that does a variety of nasty things with your PC under the control of someone else on the Internet.
You must keep the definition files up to date, if you are 2 months out of date, then you are not protected. You should also use two spyware tools, since one on its own will not detect or remove all spyware.
There is a minimal anti-spyware tool in Windows XP, but not in earlier versions of Windows. This is called Windows Defender.
| AVG Anti-spyware | AVG's free anti-spyware tool, this is different to the anti-virus product listed above. This product is highly recommended. |
| Spybot Search and Destroy | Free spyware detector and remover |
Root kits are the nastiest of the software classes on this page, they hide from the system and generally cannot be seen using normal tools. Generally root kits are linked to another type of software on this page (ie a virus, spyware, etc). Several free rootkit locating tools exist, they are listed in the following tablei. Note that if you find a root kit, you will generally find lots of other nasties after its been removed, so you need to repeat the anti-virus, anti-spyware checks again
| RootKit Revealer | Free Microsoft Rootkit locator and remover |
| AVG Root Kit locator | AVG's free Root Kit locator, this is different to the anti-virus product listed above. This product is highly recommended. |
All software contains mistakes withinin them (called bugs), these are found and corrected by the manufacturers, these bugs are often the mechanism used by the viruses and other malicious software, therefore updating your computer and keeping it up-to-date is critical to permanently resolve these issues.
The Windows update is a good way of doing this, click on the link below and follow the instructions.
Windows XP and Vista have automatic update which will do this task automatically for you. This can be found in the control panel - Press Start, Control Panel, System, then on the 'Automatic Update' tab. Select Automatic, every day and a time that the computer is on, then press OK.
Many of the above types of malicious software spread by people being generally trusting of people or organisations they know, you can therefore lower your exposure to it by following the golden rules listed below.