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How secure do your need your system to be? How about so secure that you can't even see there is a system there? That's one of the options with TrueCrypt.

You can encrypt an entire disk partition or storage device, making the entire contents of that volume unintelligible. Beyond that, you can even make that encrypted volume "invisible", so that it cannot even be found through normal means on the system. Taking that to the extreme, you can even, with a little sleight-of-hand, encrypt your windows boot partition, essentially hiding your entire system. Now that's secure!

An obvious use for the functionality that TrueCrypt provides is to make sure your USB drives are perfectly safe to have and move around. If you should happen to misplace a drive protected with this tool, there is no way the data on that volume can ever be retrieved. That's the kind of insurance we can all enjoy.

TrueCrypt is available for both Linux (kernel 2.6.5 or compatible) and Windows (Win 2000 and later, including 64-bit versions).

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There are a lot of anti-virus solutions available out there. Unfortunately, they're expensive and they require a fair amount of horsepower to run them on your computer. It seems like a combination of low price, thrifty use of resources, and frequent updates might be just the ticket.

AVG Anti-Virus is a free solution for non-commercial home use. It isn't a resource hog, so your system won't get bogged-down while you protect yourself from nasties. With regular updates pushed to your system, you'll always be prepared for the worst that the Internet has to offer. AVG is constantly on the lookout for problems in real-time with its Resident Shield, keeping an eye on files as they open and applications as they run. The Virus Vault quarantines infected files, keeping them from wreaking havoc on your system. Email scanning keeps an eye on attachments that come along with your messages.

The Free Edition of AVG Anti-Virus is available for Windows (Win95 and later), and some flavors of Linux.

Download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition

We love what the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation does — defending Americans’ rights in the digital age — and have supported them for ages. (And encourage you to do so also.) We also love Tor, a free system for online privacy created by the EFF. Tor helps “anonymize” your web browsing and other online activity, bouncing your traffic around the Internet rather than letting it take a direct route. This “covers your tracks” so curious webmasters, online advertising companies, and just plain sneaky folk can’t tell where the data came from or where it's going. The nifty part is: the more people that use Tor, the better protection of anonymity it provides for everyone who uses it.

Get Tor