Which Security Software Is Right for You?

Marketing is an ugly business. Its mission is to highlight the good points of a product and downplay its bad features. I always marvel at how companies can turn basic products such as toilet paper or chewing gum (spanning two ends of the human spectrum!) and represent them as something more exotic that what they really are.

Marketers do the same with software. And since they can be really clever, it's hard to not be swayed by the influential messages they dangle in front of us simple apes. To that end, I've listed in this chapter some of the most common products that I think are worthy (with a couple of exceptions) that you'll likely encounter in your travels from tree to tree on the Internet. Mixed in for good measure are the freebies I mention in this book so you have a single place to reference them.