Here at Thundermuffin.com our highly trained and qualified technicians scoured the Internet in search of the best free security & privacy software and services. After rigorous testing in our lab, we came up with a list of what we believe to be the best 10 available and all are deserving of the prestigious "Yellow Duck" award.

Okay, so we're not highly trained or qualified. We are not even technicians, just me and my Dad, but we do read a lot of "geeky" magazines. We don't have a computer lab, just a bunch of computers in the spare bedroom (Mom says too many!). But, the products are free and there are 10 of them, and they do deserve the coveted "Yellow Duck" award ...if we had one.

Seriously, I do use each of these products and find them capable of handling most of my basic security and privacy needs. All of the products below are free and some of the companies offer reasonably priced full-featured upgrades that will add expanded features and protection.

Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition (www.lavasoftusa.com)
Lavasoft's free spyware detection and removal software "Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition".

AVG Anti-Virus (www.grisoft.com)
Grisoft's free anti-virus software "AVG Anti-virus Free Addition" can be downloaded at Free.Grisoft.com.

Housecall (www.housecall.antivirus.com)
Trend Micro's free online virus scanner "Trend Micro Housecall". The site also includes a free online spyware scanner "Trend Micro Spyware Scanner".

IE Privacy Keeper (www.browsertools.net)
UnH Solutions free browser utility "IE Privacy Keeper" for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Their site has many more free and useful utilities.

MailWasher (www.mailwasher.net)
MailWasher no longer offers a free version of their email spam elimination products, but they do have free trial versions. However, you can download the last free version of "MailWasher" at 321Download.com.

Pop-Up Stopper Free Edition (www.panicware.com)
Panicware's free pop-up ad blocking software "Pop-Up Stopper Free Edition".

RegCleaner (www.jv16.org)
Macecraft Software no longer offers a free version of their registry cleaning products, but they do have free trial versions. However, you can download the last free version of "RegCleaner" at 321Download.com.

ShieldsUp (www.grc.com)
"ShieldsUp" is a free online port scanner provided by Gibson Research Corporation.

Spybot Search & Destroy (www.spybot.info)
"Spybot Search & Destroy" is a free spyware detector and removal program. The advanced mode also contains many useful utilities.

ZoneAlarm (www.zonelabs.com)
Zone Labs free "ZoneAlarm" firewall and an online spyware detector "ZoneAlarm Spyware Scanner".