Best Internet Safety Freeware

Internet safety software helps you avoid Internet scams, identity theft, phishing (read about it at PhishTank), spam, and malware (including viruses, Trojans, adware, and spyware). There are many freeware options that provide Internet security, including site advisers, site and link scanners, browser protectors, etc. Many of the freeware products reviewed here also provide child safety (with site filter or site blocker features). Regular use of these types of software generally helps to improve your Internet safety and privacy.

You can learn more about Internet threats from OnGaurd Online, and read about related computer security tips from Web of Trust and Gizmo's Guide to Securing Your PC.

The site adviser or safety check software in this article are important Internet security solutions for all users. The best security setups in the world will not completely prevent you, say, from entering your credit card information on an online form and sending it to scam artists. Prevention and user involvement are an essential line of defense.

Additionally, many sites conceal their deceitfulness. For example, let's say you simply want a relaxing fish tank screensaver and you decide to search for one at Google. The search item doesn't sound malicious and Google is a known safe site. Right?

Here are my real life results for some likely search terms you might use. I searched Google for "screensavers" and found 7 out of 10 links rated with dangerous warnings from WOT (counting only page 1 rated links). So you have a 70% chance of surfing to a malicious site for that sensible search item. For the search item, "fish tank screensaver," WOT gave 5 of the 12 links on page 1 red warnings (plus 4 yellow alerts), which gives you a 42% chance of surfing to a red marked dangerous site or 75% if you include yellow warnings. And "free screensaver" gave me an 8/10 or 80% chance of surfing a dangerous site. Searching for "porn" is 40% safer than searching for "fish screensavers." Maybe fish aren't that important after all.

Here are my results for a few random searches based on Google popularity mostly (only page 1 results):

• "Screensavers" - 70% (or 70% chance of surfing to a site with a red WOT warning)
• "Free Credit Report" - 50%; "Make Money Online Fast" - 40%
• "Keygens" - 40%/3 cautions; "Software Crack Codes" - 36%/2 cautions
• "Download Music" - 40%; "Music Downloading" - 36%
• "Game Keygens" - 30%/2 cautions; "Game Hex Editor" - 20%/1 cautions
• "Porn" - 15%/3 cautions
• "Free Money" - 15%/2 cautions
• 1-2% dangerous for the following: "Cookies", "Free", "Quizzes", "Sex", "Internet Games for Free"
• 0% with 1 caution each: "Newspapers", "Golf", "Music", "Free Games", "Take Over the World"
• 0% each: "Dictionary", "Football", "Free Online Games", "Jobs", "Nuclear Weapons", "New Moon"
• Any others of interest? List them in the comments.

Overall the numbers aren't that bad for most search results, but you would never know whether your particular search item is deadly unless you used safety advisers. It's obviously very high for certain types of websites, such as those for screensavers, free credit reports, game/software piracy, music downloading, porn, and free money.

However, McAfee SiteAdvisor found that "many popular Web categories (examples: screensavers, free games, contests) have a much higher percentage of red and yellow sites" (FAQ). In addition to "screensavers" (which was #1 in risk in their testing), McAfee found that lyrics keywords and keywords containing "free" were highest in risk (ZDnet). It was difficult for me to replicate their results for lyrics and normal games from just page 1 results, but my random search words above contained similar types of dangerous sites, such as those offering free money or music or game piracy.

Advisory software like SiteAdvisor or WOT is not zero-day protection since a "good" website could decide to go over to the dark side, and users may make mistakes or disregard advice. LinkExtend, in fact, is a new option that combines several advisory sources to try to minimize the chance of any one service missing a risky site.

Internet safety check software includes many different types of security methods:

• Get website reports and safety advice: Some advisory software combines user input and known lists of threats to produce its ratings of sites (WOT); some combines many free online sources (LinkExtend); and some massively test web traffic and use other information to produce security ratings (McAfee SiteAdvisor).
• Actively scan websites: Built-in features of many web browsers and software -- like AVG LinkScanner, Dr.Web online check, and Exlabs' online scan -- scan a site's current content for malicious behavior before or as you surf a site. They find a narrower range of threats, but they are the most up-to-date, basic scans for suspicious sites, search results, or email links.
• Quickly check or double-check a website online: you can use several online safety report search engines to see security reports for a site with or without downloading or installing software.

Here are good combinations:

• Users with fast Internet connections: WOT (Firefox, Internet Explorer) or LinkExtend (Firefox, Flock), and other malware protection is highly recommended.
• Users with slow Internet connections: WOT and other malware protection is highly recommended.
• Other browsers: WOT Scripts/Bookmarklets (Opera, Safari), AVG LinkScanner (Chrome, Opera).

I. Best Free Internet Safety Advisers

1.  WOT is my #1 top pick for its quick ratings, rich features and options, and it's excellent warning screen. WOT reports over 24.8 million rated sites (rated at least to some extent) and has over 3.4 million user comments, according to statistics on the mywot.com home page. It combines ratings from competent users with automatic ratings from nearly a hundred independent sources, such as a list of phishing sites (read how it works). It gives you detailed warnings about potentially malicious websites, and it integrates well with major search engines and email providers. It provides two distinct types of scores, including a circular symbol and 5 people icons. The circular symbol has 5 colors from red to green for a website's trustworthiness, reliability, privacy, and child safety. And the 5 "people" icons indicate the reliability of the color scale ratings, so the greater the number of darkened icons, the better the supporting evidence for a site's ratings.

Best of all: it uses a fantastic warning screen to empower users to avoid interacting with potentially bad websites. This is my favorite sort of approach since it leaves the final decision to the user. If you combine this with your own good sense in avoiding untrustworthy sites and suspicious email links, then you have a nice preventative web shield. If you happen to load a risky website (or a child inappropriate site optionally), WOT covers the screen with a warning and waits for you to decide:

• You can ignore the WOT warning and go to the site anyways;
• Rate the site if you disagree with WOT's rating (which redirects to WOT or opens in a new tab, but without going to the bad site);
• View rating details and comments about the site (which redirects to WOT or opens in a new tab, but without going to the bad site);
• Or you could surf to a different site, close the tab, or press "Back" on your browser (or type in a different address, use your bookmarks, etc.) to go away from the potentially risky site.

But if you want to block risky websites completely (or child inappropriate sites even), you can customize it to do so in "Settings..." > "Warnings." But I still had problems with the blocking feature (it didn't allow me to click "Back" to return to my previous page when it blocks a site, and it uses a "loading screen" message if a site loses its connection and then it reloads the site -- even if I was editing an article or otherwise writing online, which means I would lose any unsaved work). Though it allows you to ignore warning or blocking messages for a specific site if you manually enter (or "whitelist") it in "Settings..." > "Advanced" (not recommended).

2.  LinkExtend: Firefox users with fast Internet connections may want to try it. It incorporates advisory ratings from many different free sources, and it has the potential to be the most secure. It's sort of like a poll of polls since it combines multiple sources into its overall rating, such as WOT and SiteAdvisor and many others (that each individually draw from multiple sources). But you may want to have it load the ratings at 10 seconds (it can be set in "Options" > "Main") so the ratings do not suddenly change, say, from green to yellow or red. Here are some screenshots. It's very helpful for site managers or anyone wanting to multi-source the safety of a link, and I have found a few links where it gave a red rating while WOT/SiteAdvisor gave a green rating (or vice versa).

Despite these considerable strengths, it did give me some problems in my testing on a dialup connection. The ratings may change dramatically as it continues to load them from various sources, and after disabling it my Internet connection seemed to speed up. Therefore, it doesn't just slow down your Internet (especially while surfing with search engines), it may mislead you with an early "safe" rating before it changes to unsafe. Plus it doesn't play well with other site advisers, slowing my WOT Firefox addon considerably. Overall it may be overkill for many users, but if you're interested, it provides perspective on the different site adviser/site scanning services -- they don't always agree with each other, they don't all do their testing at the same time, and they use slightly different techniques to rate. Read more about it over at Gizmo's article: New Firefox Extension Makes Browsing Safer.

3.  McAfee SiteAdvisor massively analyzes websites and evaluates them for the public. It has reviewed over 8 million sites, and tested over 5 million downloads and tracked for over 7 million possible sources of spam. It also allows registered users to add comments to its reviews. The analysis is based on automatic roving tests of websites (downloading files, entering information in sign-up forms, clicking on links), employee analysis, user comments, and site owner comments (read how it works). It provides color coded ratings based on its analysis, such as a secure grade (highest), green check, and yellow and red for cautions. Here is a sample report posted by McAfee.

However, there are some questions over the infrequency of its ratings. For example, it was less sensitive than WOT for some of my test search terms, such as "screensavers", and gave green checks to some sites that seemed very negative in tone (based on user comments). Recently I re-tested it and was very impressed with its improvements. It leaves most install nags unchecked (letting users decide whether make Yahoo! the default search engine). It's easy to disable for short periods of time and it has many settings to allow users to customize it.

Additionally, in its "reviewer central" it has posted several websites where it is considering a change of rating based on user votes. So it is starting to integrate WOT style ratings but not as often or as quickly as WOT. Finally, it has the largest download size by far at over 6 times the size of WOT or LinkExtend.

II. Additional Site Adviser/Scanner Options

1.  Website Scanners: The following scanning options are complements to WOT, LinkExtend, or SiteAdvisor, but note that some web browsers also detect malware and phishing and other threats. These kind of scanners are not as sensitive to as many forms of scams and malicious content on sites as WOT type advisers, but they scan the active content of sites (placing check marks or warnings in your search results, emails, and even specific web pages on a site). But, of course, scanners sometimes cannot scan a link if it has moved and sometimes they have errors and fail to rate as well.

• AVG LinkScanner is a great additional tools to scan for malicious content. It scans web pages in real-time and produces a color coded rating. It acts as a preventative scanner for search engine results and as a silent shield constantly scanning the active content of sites. It's a good choice for when other safety check freeware fail to rate a site and for users of Chrome and Opera (active shield only), or for a second opinion on suspicious sites, search results, and email links. But it only provides basic protection. Plus, you must have an Internet connection for it to install. Additional links: How it Works, Forum.
   
• Dr.Web online check for scanning sites for "viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, and other malicious objects". Or you can get it as a browser addon with Dr. Web LinkChecker, for Firefox, Opera, or Internet Explorer.
   
• Exlabs' online scan for site safety scanning. It gave up the freeware link scanner to AVG LinkScanner, but the site is still active for on-demand URL checks.
   
• Finjan SecureBrowsing also scans website code and does a behavioral analysis to detect known and unknown threats from active content (from JavaScript, VB Script, ActiveX, Java applets). It "identifies potentially malicious code such as spyware, hacking code viruses and code that tampers with your PC system settings". It provides simple warnings or green checks next to search engine results. It works well on dialup connections, but it's only an add-on for Firefox or Internet Explorer. I like to check the "Show unsafe/red URLs only" feature in "Options." Additional links: How It Works, FAQ.
   

2.  Find Web Site Security Reports, Scans, and Secure Searches (Without Downloading Software): If you can't use LinkExtend, these will help you compare site reports from multiple services. They may also help if your browser doesn't support your favorite site adviser.

• Web of Trust (myWOT.com) Scorecards
• McAfee SiteAdvisor Reports
• Web Security Guard Reports
• Norton Safe Web Ratings
• Browser Defender Tests
  
• Surf Canyon/Bing WOT secure search (You need to have scripts enabled for it to filter the search results and wait a second if you have a slow connection since it filters after the search results appear.)
• McAfee Secure Shop
• TRUSTe (Sites trusted for privacy; no search)
   

3.  If you need extra security to do your online business transactions, enter passwords, or verify suspicious sites, then you may want additional tools or a good second opinion.

• KeyScrambler (key stroke encryption), RoboForm/LastPass (password managers with virtual keyboard, automatic password/form filling), Transaction Guard/Neo’s SafeKeys (virtual keyboards), and ID Vault (encrypts passwords and other information, automatic password/form filling).
   
• CallingID: Smoothly places a small toolbar into your browser and cautions you about suspicious sites before you enter important information (supports Firefox, IE, and some email and messenger clients).
   
• Comodo's Verification Engine: It works independently from your browser, ensuring that website logos and login boxes are legitimate, but it does, however, constantly run in the tray and some features are browser specific (supports Firefox & IE).
   

4.  Child Safety Freeware: Many options help you control unwanted content and filter or block child inappropriate sites. Briefly here are some of the options.

• Devoted child safety - KidZui, OpenDNS, K9 Web Protection, Glubble, Vista Parental Control, built-in content filtering features in browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari).
• Limited child safety - WOT, LinkExtend.
   

5.  Not Reviewed: These are additional site safety raters that I decided not to include in the review, but I list them here for ease of reference.

• Browser Defender
• Web Security Guard
• Netcraft Toolbar (Anti-Phishing)
• BitDefender (Anti-Phishing)
• Google Toolbar/Safe Browsing (Anti-Phishing)
• RGguard (Anti-Malware)
  
• TrendProtect

III. Malware Protection

1.  Browser Protection: If you are willing to put up with the slight learning curve of Sandboxie or GeSWall, then I highly recommend one of those products. They use different techniques to prevent or remove malware without depending on antivirus and antimalware scanners (that do not detect everything). Another option is to use a limited user account combined with TweakUAC.
 

2.  Basic Computer Security Tips: We have excellent articles on the best free antivirus software and the best free adware/spyware/scumware removers to use. I also like to have a free software firewall, but the best ones require a little patience setting up and dealing with warnings, so at least be sure to turn on windows firewall (if so, see our HIPS article).

Antivirus and antispyware scanners often allow you to scan your downloads with a right-click to the file or folder > and a click on something like "Scan with AntiVir/Malwarebytes/etc.". Or use online multi-scanners such as Virustotal or Jotti.
 

3.  OpenDNS or Comodo DNS: Recently I've seen many recommendations for free DNS providers. They are extremely easy to setup, require no software (for the most part), and filter some malicious content before it gets a chance to harm your PC. These providers work by translating site addresses into IP addresses understood by computers (DNS primer) and by using servers often more secure than your regular ISP. Follow the directions provided by OpneDNS or Comodo DNS to make the easy switch; you will use these server names:

OpenDNS:

• 208.67.222.222
• 208.67.220.220

Comodo DNS:

• 156.154.70.22
• 156.154.71.22
   

4.  Secunia PSI: It's a good idea to run it at least once (and every once in awhile) to check for security holes in your software; it provides you with helpful links to update or uninstall software. But it automatically adds itself to the task scheduler without asking and it's generally slow. So for regular updating, see the article on Software Update Monitors.
 

5.  SpywareBlaster is a very simple security program that helps block malicious content. For Firefox and many other browsers it mainly just blocks bad cookies from a list of specific sites. For Internet Explorer (IE) and browsers that use the IE engine it uses a list of restricted sites to block bad cookies, prevent the installation of activeX spyware, and prevent downloads/scripts/browser exploits. It doesn't seem to support Opera/Chrome/Safari. Spybot Search & Destroy has similar blocking features as SpywareBlaster.
 

6.  Almost all popular web browsers now provide some general malware protection. I confirmed that Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari, & Internet Explorer all have anti-phishing, anti-malware, popup blocking, encryption support with SSL & TLS, and deletion of private data built-in. They also produce warning screens to help you to avoid malicious sites, but they are less sensitive than WOT type advisers. In addition, Firefox, IE, Google Chrome, and SRWare also have private browsing modes to clear your tracks away. Here's a sample:

• Firefox users will want to investigate its add-ons like WOT, LastPass, NoScript, and Adblock, but it also has anti-malware protection and website ID.
• Opera benefits from its built-in use of fraud protection (from Netcraft and PhishTank), malware protection from TRUSTe, and content blocking.
• Google Chrome (and Chrome based browsers) excel with built-in use of secure sandboxing and anti-malware protection, making it especially difficult for outsiders to exploit even when hackers do find a bug.
   

Of course, it also helps to use your own good judgment in avoiding suspicious sites or emails and checking downloads.

General Security Advice:

• Security Advice Wizard: Get personalized results and our security team's up-to-date suggestions.
• Probably the Best Security List in the World: Read Ako's excellent suggestions.
• Gizmo's Guide to Securing Your PC: Increase computer security with safe practices.
• How to Surf More Securely: Improve security with Sandboxie or DropMyRights.
• Spyware Removal Guide: Clean up after using bad practices or verify that you are malware free.
• How to Improve Security When Using a Public Terminal: Learn how to type passwords & more.
• Safe Computing in Under an Hour: Read MidnightCowboy's excellent suggestions.

General Security Software Articles:

• Best Free Parental Filter
• Best Free Browser Protection Utility
• Best Free Antivirus Software
• Best Free Adware/Spyware/Scumware Remover
• Best Free Firewall
• Best Free Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use (HIPS)
• Best Free Encryption Utility
• Best Free Software Update Monitor
• Best Free Password Manager
• Best Free Trojan Scanner/Trojan Remover
• Best Free Spam Filter for the Average User
• Best Free Spam Filter for the Experienced User
   

Find more free software at The Editors' Choice List: Our Selection of the Best PC Freeware!