Tips & Tweaks: Avoid viruses and phishing scams

PC World - If you follow my blog, you know I've been embroiled in an ongoing struggle to troubleshoot my PC, which went south after a recent windstorm here in Southern California.

If that wasn't enough, I've also been getting phishing e-mails to deal with. And, of course, we all heard about that Kama Sutra worm that was supposed to wreak havoc on Feb. 3.

All of this set me to worrying about you and how you're faring. This week I've pulled together some free antivirus software to try, plus updates on phishing attacks and how you can avoid getting scammed.

Need antivirus software? Try one of these:

If a friend asks which antivirus protection I recommend, I tell them about two: Grisoft's AVG Antivirus and Alwil's Avast.

I like these two because they do the job efficiently and they're both free. But both freebies have annoyances, just like their commercial brethren.

For example, AVG Antivirus won't automatically check for signature updates or perform a scan more than once a day. But you can do it manually whenever you need to: Just right-click on the AVG Control Center icon in the system tray and choose "Check for update from internet." For a full scan, open AVG and choose "Complete test" from the interface.

And Avast has an annoying pop-up that obliquely tells you your license has expired. A buddy got the pop-up and was confused. Here's what he wrote:

"Hey, Bassman, Avast wants something and I'd like to know how to execute whatever it's asking us for. And we're not sure what it's asking us for... the note reads: 'An error has occurred while attempting to update!' After clicking on it, all it says is the update failed because the license key for this product is invalid or expired."

If you get this message, don't worry; it's really an easy fix. Just head for the Avast Web site, register again, and you'll be sent a new license key by e-mail.

Free Cyberhawk promises to outwit viruses and spyware

If you use Novatix's Cyberhawk, there's a good chance you can dump your antivirus and antispyware programs.

I know what you're thinking, and no, the program isn't ad-driven, nor is there any spyware built into it. Novatix makes money by licensing its technology to other companies.

Cyberhawk is designed to guard your system by watching the behavior of invaders. Most antivirus and antispyware programs work after the fact -- by adding a signature after seeing what the malware does. The program is still in beta,