My reviews and recommendations

Patch management

For the patch management I would like to recommend . BigFix patch management program than can be downloaded here It is free for what BigFix site call consumers so check their license agreement to be on the safe side.

Antivirus software

I would recommend Norman Virus Control.

Free (for one year) anti virus software from one of the big vendors is available.

• First of all it does the job well. Just check Norman VB100% results (including June 2003)- better than the most of big guns Network Associates McAfee, Trend Micro, Computer Associates Vet and Symantec AntiVirus has VB100% result slightly better.
• Second reason is performance - when Norman Virus Control does not affect performance of your computer. You would not notice it.
• Third reason is ease of configuration. Once configured it works.

Capital Security Solutions distributes Norman Data Defence products in Australia.

Personal Firewall

My choice was Tiny Personal Firewall Ver. 2.0.15, but it is not available any more, so I would recommend Kerio Personal Firewall (it seems to me that it has Tiny Personal Firewall as close ancestor or even twin).

Reasons are two - it does the job best and it easy to configure to any level of security. By the way - it is FREE for home use.

NEW
Windows 2003 compatible Firewall for small-to-medium size business - I would recommend 602Pro LAN SUITE. It is free for up to 5 licenses and has a lot of many important features. It has Proxy Server, Network Address Translation, Mail Server etc.

Privacy Protection

Spybot - Search & Destroy Is my choice. It is the best. My opinion is that it even better than famous Ad-Aware. It provides the same features for free that Ad-Aware has in commercial version. Spybot helps you to control all sorts of spyware.