Free Virus Protection with a Freeware Virtual System
free antivirus protection
I’ve always wanted to have a computer system without any antivirus software but still invulnerable to any malicious attack whatsoever. Not that I want a free virus protection, but rather because of the system intensive nature of an antivirus that turns me away from it. I’ve been trying this in years with various attempts without any success.
This is the time when I made a major change in the way I apply computer security software for my Windows platforms.
The ordeal began
A spyware virus infected my main peer-to-peer computer without any computer security software installed.
This spyware virus infected the system files in an IE6 internet session that I don’t exactly know when. At first I thought it was from a freeware I just downloaded and run.
But after quarantining it in a virtual-machine (this is another free virus protection in a way), I discovered that it was not the malicious software. So I had to trace the malware from the beginning of the system installation steps because it sure has attached itself to an installation application somewhere. I wanted to catch it “in the act” and remove it once and for all.
I gotcha!
I finally found the malware attached to an onboard AGP driver that was originally clean but now was infected because it was located in the hard drive.
So I cleaned up the disk, went through the process once again while skipping the AGP driver to conclude that it had a contagious virus as it showed that symptom.
At that time I didn’t use any computer security software let alone an antivirus protection to help me in this matter. So I didn’t have any virus identification that could have been done even by any free antivirus software.
After trying to go online (going online is the way to trigger the virus’s detectable action) BEFORE any drivers was installed, the virus was nowhere to be found nor would it come into action anymore.
Let’s try the last resort system configuration and test it
Before this incident, I didn’t want to use any computer security software nor internet security software at all (because of the system burden it will cause). And because of this, the system usually cannot prevail more than 6 months without getting infected by malware, as it was used intensively by many people in the office. But now, this is the turning point and I have decided to implement a permanent virtualization system no matter how.
Here goes the rest
free virtual system protection
After the virus was removed and all data had been cleaned up, I installed the system as usual, and installed Returnil System Personal Edition (a virtual system) as a free virus protection, all in the first (20GB) partition, which will be protected by the virtual system, leaving the rest of the hard drive for working data holder in the second partition. After installing all the system and software needed to be on the computer, I configure all working data folder of each of the software to the second partition.
When everything is ready and tested, I tuned up a bit here and there, do a little trimming in files leftovers, and I freeze the clean system. And there it is the computer security software of my choice: virtualization. I will post about this virtualization system in more details later, along with the step by step video on how I set up my system so I can still do everyday work while having a virtualization system on.
Also checkout my post on Zone Alarm Free Firewall, Top Ten Antivirus 2011 Review and Antivirus Firewall Software.
