Free Security Tools Everyone Should Use 

1. Autoruns - 0:23 2. Process Explorer - 3:38 3. PeStudio - 5:05 4. HxD - 6:00 5. Comodo Free Firewall - 7:11 6. Bitdefender and Kaspersky - 9:11 7. Bitwarden - 10:17

I wish there were links to these things in the description. Just knowing the name alone isn't always great considering there's usually a metric ton of different DL links when looking these up and it can get tricky to find the official links. The first result isn't always the safest or official one.

This channel is great. Can't believe I just found it now after it's been on yt for 11 years. Not that I use the torrent anymore or visit shady sites like in my youth (20 years ago), but every once in a while I get curious if my system is clean. And while the topic of pc security always tickled my curiosity, I never dived really deep into it. This here has the right balance. So thank you, for making these.

Would love to see Comodo’s container stress tested!

Would love to know more of these types in different categories. This was so informative

We use Autoruns in our PC Repair shop. But please beware, this is a really powerful tool (it makes changes to the Windows registry) and if you don't know what you are doing and delete the wrong stuff you can seriously screw up your system. With that caveat, it's a great tool.

Extremely useful video, thank you. I just have a new computer, and need to setup good security in it, what you explain is exactly what I need. I can't thank you enough.

Great video! Would be lovely to have links for each of the services in the description, although maybe I am just of a lazy nature. Thanks for the content.

I would recommend Comodo only as Firewall - Keeping HIPS and VirusScope enabled made the comodo process use 18-23% CPU power all the time even when in idle. Also Comodo HIPS generated ton of false-positive alerts, it's still great as firewall but other functionalities just take up too much resources

I would add Microsoft's Task Scheduler to this list. Poke around on the left hand side first and you will see some familiar names. The number of your apps that are set to run on startup and and periodic intervals checking back with the mothership is quite an eye opener. I found one app that was checking for updates hourly. You may actually want to keep them but you can alter to time and frequency that they are calling home. The TS can be a very good tool once you figure out its inner workings.

Would love to see Comodo’s container stress tested!. It can't get anymore simple than this. Thank you soo much howtobasic!.

I am brand new to DAW and soft soft - these tutorials are excellent an very helpful to get soone like up and running. Appreciate

Thumbs up! This is very helpful. Does Comodo alert or at least list any outbound attempt? I have tried Comodo awhile back, and didn't notice any method for blocking outbound attempts. Especially from the built in spyware in Windows. Windows 11 is more like an anti-OS since it doesn't do what OS is supposed to do. But rather, it runs more like malware than an operating system. Not all malicious activity is about stealing identity or compromising anything. But can simply fall under general illegitimate activity which tens to consists of three characteristics. A - unsolicited activity. Activity not requested or even in the awareness of user. B - surreptitious activity. Activity hidden from the user. And in many cases difficult to detect. C - self reinitiating/replicating. Activity with multiple failsafes for the purpose of continued persistence with no regard to user. Often completely against user. All of this is known as illegitimate activity. Which is a form of malicious activity. This is how malware behaves. All the same can be said about illegitimate data collection - malicious/spyware. All the type of data collection in Windows 11 falls under A, B, C. This is the opposite of OS function. To provide user interface for managing applications and hardware on a machine. Applications don't need OS. This was even the standard in the good old days. But OS allows for software to be developed for OS. The OS can interface with the hardware. But the main aspect is the UI and functions of OS that are meant for user to fully control everything. Yet much aspects of Windows works against this.

Wow! This video is extremely helpful. All applications are very useful. Please keep posting videos like this every once in a while

Thanks so much for making this video its soo hard keeping up with all the new good programs that don't cost money!

bro, you just helped me with the malware I was facing thank you a lot keep going love you your the best

Thanks for the advice!

It can't get anymore simple than this. Thank you soo much howtobasic!

Thank you saved me a lot of time trying to browse videos for an actual working one

I find it fascinating that all the programs you mentioned, I don't run my computer without them being present and up to date. Comodo when I put it on my system i run it to notify me of everything that tries to connect online for about 3-5 days. You'll be amazed at what do, that doesn't need to. Especially Microsoft stuff.

Comodo with the CruelSister configuration (can be searched for) is very strong, basically auto sandboxing non whitelisted software, and preventing said software from connecting to the internet. They keep a preset list of approved whitelisted software so really not much if any user input is needed when it comes to the whitelist. Folks have test the config in the past and as far as I can tell nothing has gotten past it yet, though that is mostly due to the program sandboxing the unknown software with restricted permissions. You can still run non-whitelisted software it just runs sandboxed, and in the off chance they haven't already reviewed the software you can manually whitelist it. I had to do so like 3-4 times in the 2-3 years I used it.

Would love to see Trend Micro in action again. Its been 4 years since Leo had tested the Trend Micro product.

I got hooked by your channel with this beautiful video ❤️

Really awesome video and especially inspiration. Thank you !

i can recommend also using simplewall by henry++, a great and lightweight tiny firewall - a must have.

I use Comodo Firewall (been using it since 2012) and I paid for Bitwarden premium back in December so I could use it with my Yubikey I was thinking of installing Bitdefender over MS defender but I saw that BD does not have a silent mode unless you pay for total security (gaming mode profile) I know KSC does work with Comodo Firewall but I never figured out how to get rid of the incompatibility popup that would constantly appear

Loved the video, thanks for the recommendations!

Excellent Video! Now I'm curious make a video of guardio test

Glad to see Bitwarden on here!! Nice work

Been using Process Explorer for years, highly recommend it. Much more in-depth than Task Manager.

Thank you, this was very helpful.

Been a longtime user of Bitwarden. Love it.

Thanks for the list. I missed malwarebytes and spybot search & destroy, two tools that I use regularly on all my windows computers.

A downside that I think Bitdefender has (may be an advantage for some people?) I tested it on a laptop. It seems it will reset windows update during installation. Which I have used a PS script a long time ago to disable it for good reason. I did not notice it for a while. Eventually, I had to reinstall the system. Because windows auto update will cause problems with some hardware that requires unsigned third party drivers.

This was GREAT!! Thank you so much!

Can't tell you how useful this vid is! Ty!

Awesome video! I was surprised by the mention of Comodo firewall. Is the default Windows firewall not as good as the Comodo firewall or does the Comodo firewall simply have useful features the Windows firewall doesn't have? Also, would it be worth running the Comodo firewall on a machine on a network that's behind a pfSense firewall? Thanks for posting!

Hey PC Security thank you so much for recommending Comodo Firewall to us! It, combined with free Bitdefender and ConfigureWindowsDefender, has made me actually feel safe on my computer, for the first time in the past 5 years. (long story..) Could you please comment, if you would be so kind, what is the difference between the Free firewall and the Paid version? The latter has "Sophisticated buffer overflow protection", but is that really needed? What does that help against? (let's say if you are dealing with a live hacker on a network) Thank you and keep doing what you are doing!

I'm a big fan of NetLimiter as secondary firewall (over the main one like pfSense)

Great list, thank you Leo

When buying a new computer, I personally just take a look at the software and find the brand's utilities that I may need in the future then do a clean install to remove all the bloatware.

I used to use Comodo and BitDefender, but especially BitDefender would sometimes give me issues. 99% of the times it was completely unintrusive, but there were 2 or 3 programs, such as games, that would either not run/install properly or stutter a lot even with BitDefender disabled, only resolving it when I completely uninstalled the AV.

Thanks for the info and the video. Is using comodo firewall enough so I can turn off windows firewall?

Excellent video, forwarded it to my peers too 🙂

O&O ShutUp10++ is also a really nice tool to disable telemetry and other privacy and security invading windows "features".

Something that sucks about Process Explorer is the use of Virus Total. Virus Total is a big privacy hazad if not used correctly as it uploads files that are used so if you scan somthing personal, most likely it is logged.

hank you soo much very direct link n works for me love the way you expressed the installation .

great helpful vid! do you know any end-point app like process explorer, but monitoring the end-point remotely?

Please do an indept video on autoruns and process explorer.

Can you talk about the efficiency of ransomware from Kaspersky and no more ransom?

Wanted to thank you for a great vid. Helped a lot. I've been trying to get going in both soft soft and didn't get very far. TNice tutorials vid helped a

Wish I could like this video a million times. Wow this is an amazing video. Thank you.

What no links in the description or a list the program names? Guardio - to get the full features $6 a month. I don't think so at that price when uBlock Origin is free and my AV costs 1/4 of that for 3 years

you should really link Official Links for anything you suggest so they do not get a HACKED version of the programs because hacked version of these programs are all over the place

Another great video Leo thank you so much.

This seems geared more to the cognoscenti than the everyman with a PC. I kept looking for the download and install instructions. The zip file has many variations of the program and it would be helpful to know which one(s) to use.

Love it how Comodo is one of your first recommendation yet you refuse to do a malware test for years to see how much protection it is actually provide. I've been using Comodo for years and I was begging on this channel for years to do a test to see if it was a good choice. LOL

Given the current geopolitical tensions right now I wouldn't recommend using Kaspersky's AV, they're likely fine because most of their operation runs from Switzerland and is predominantly owned by a UK company. With that being said, one of the lead devs is a former FSB officer(Russia's CIA) and Kaspersky's is HQ'd in Moscow we don't know definitively what their ties are like with the Russian gov. If you're Russian, you probably don't want to use it either it could be used, theoretically, to track your activity across the internet The rule of thumb is that you always want to decrease your attack surface, so when in doubt...

thank you for this. very helpful. i have "kaspersky standard" which i think has a firewall - is it worth installing comodo in addition? thanks again

Woah, great video mate!

It would be nice if you would have provided the website to download these to make sure Im not downloading any malware

Autoruns and Process Explorer are must have tools in Malware removal....I've been using them since 2004...great tools. Bitwarden I'm a *bit* in the air about since it becomes a PITA to type in your master password every time you want to include a new password into the vault, even on a trusted machine I am having to do this. It might be the way it interacts with my browser, I'm not sure at this point.

Priceless, thanks a lot!

Anyone got direct links to these original sources/coders/creators/websites?

Thanks for this great introduction! Very useful for a novice as myself. Can someone explain to me please, how is a password manager better than just having a different strong password for each different account? Is it not fundamentally less secure to have my passwords all stored beneath one master password? If that master password is exposed in some way, doesn't this make all of my accounts now vulnerable, especially with autofills?

Thank Man so much for theses great tools, your doing a Awesome job !!

Hello Leo. I have a question: Since you've been using Windows 11 for some time now, would u recommend switching to Win11 right now for a gaming user? and is it stable enough?

Does kaspersky security cloud go well with comodo firewall? or do they conflict or cause problems?

Hi, thanks for these great videos. You mentioned Comodo Firewall. Is that a full blown anti-virus as well? You also mentioned two other anti-virus. Can all of these programs be used with Microsoft’s own Windows Defender? Thank you.

As for me, everything is simple and clear. Thank you very much for t

But remember! A “proper” malicious program would hook into the windows dlls in order to filter and hide itself! Which means: You can NOT find them with simple tools like this (unless you have the hash values for every file of every windows release and any/all windows programs).

Please sir, put the download links. Sometimes I don't trust myself enough to be sure I'm downloading it from the right place. But thank you, though!

ooh yeah i remember removing the lavasoft adware from my pc with the autorun. Great tool!!!

Thanks for share this value information!!

Dont use bitdefender. It is broken at the moment and runs a forced scan every login 1hr after system up uses 100% disk and 15%cpu for 6-10mins. They are planning to fix this in the May 4th patch, try it after that if you like, but support say it will still run but and may be able to be turned off by users after that. Currently and for the last couple of months these forced scans have run and ignore the client's drive exclusions and all other settings turning off scans.

Thank you Leo. Ive downloaded autoruns64 and found out that my WPS tool of my wifi dongle had a keylogger bundled with it, now i could remove its boot entry :). Also can you make a video about the dangers of pre loaded software on USB/SSD/HDD's? ive recently bought a external samsung SSD and its pre loaded software installer is actually a full fledged spyware and keylogger. It was the tool that comes out of the factory and was counter signed and ranked as good by most AV vendors. Its purpose was to provide a option to set a passphrase and update the firmware of the controller.

You got my sub after watching a few videos and seeing these tools

Great Video!! Im now subscribed

Nice list. But as a free password manager and or paid I would rather choose keepass and my main reason not to use bitwarden unless self hosted is that it servers are in a five eye country. What do you think of this Leo. Curious for your answer. Also because for syncing reasons I am thinking about Nordpass based in Panama.

SpyBot Search & Destroy has been one of my favorite Non-Microshaft utilities. I know a lot of you are going to scoff at it. I use what works and it has a free version.

Fantastic, love ur channel!

Thank you man for sharing this stuff

An interesting free tool set is Comodo Cleaning Essentials. It’s basically SysInternals with built-in scanning through Comodo’s malicious signatures database. It would be neat to see it tested against Sysinternals to see if Comodo has done anything valuable making it. I’ve had some techs I’ve trained prefer CCE over SysInternals because it felt easier to use.

I would add malwarebytes to this. The free edition as a scanner is really good but premium version with all the goodies has not let me down for many years now.

Thanks for the video. Just a question: if I install Comodo Firewall, Defender's own firewall will be limited somehow? Thanks in advance.

This is the best free software Ive seen. Respect.

I installed comodo firewall and my pc wouldn't boot up until I system restored to before

Additional free tools I like are: 1) Unchecky 2) Complete Internet Repair 3) Glary Utilities 4) Super Anti-Spyware 5) Lazesoft Recovery Suite 6) MalwareBytes Browser Guard 7) Adguard Browser Extension 8) Adware Removal Tool 9) ADW Cleaner 10) Ninite Free Software Installer

Great stuff. Thank you.

DNS Bench checks and rates DNSs and can help you set the best and the most secure DNSs. I am an ex-pat that lives in China, and to avoid monitoring, I select DNSs that they do not own. It's free and pretty simple to use.

Dude we want another Kaspersky vs Bitdefender 2022 for free and paid suite 🔥🔥

but BD is heavy ram

just a suggestion from INDIA - please put markers on video !!!!! BTW NICE WORK!

Awesome work and very interesting vid!

Awesome video. Id like to see a head to hgead between Kaspersky AV vs Emsisoft AV. I recently switched to Kaspersky because Emsisoft I felt was slowing my system and running it hot. Also, a mix of Glasswire and Comodo Firewall would be one epic Firewall!

Glasswire is great. You can set it to show you everything that makes a new internet connection. And you can set it to do automatic virus total submissions of programs and show you the results. Many governments have been advising against using Kaspersky

just downloaded autoruns and was able to disable a lot of bloatware (edge, ie, google update etc) that i wasn't even aware was residing in my pc. this video is the real deal

Thanks for the info!

I don't know if I am the only one having this problem but when I installed Kaspersky cloud protection it uninstalled my kaspersky total security anyone knows why? And also anyone knows or have article about the difrence in kasperky versions by a region (you have to check for what region you want) and I would like to know if there is any defrence between them.

My favorite security tool is virtual machine.