These choices were made by trail, by recommendation, and my particular system and needs. Of course there are other good programs-but prejudice and personality play a part in this too! Alan
Firewall: Window (Vista) Built-In Firewall.... it is much better than past Windows firewalls
Anti-Spyware: Spybot S&D, Lava Ad-Aware
Anti-Malware: Lava Ad-Aware
Anti-Rootkit: none
Rootkit scan: none
Browser: Firefox
File Cleaner: CCleaner
Defragger: Windows Defrag
** As a side note, I mostly use Linux Debian x64 bit on my system, so I have no need for any of this. I do use Firefox, but Linux requires no extra protection. It is inherently secure and free of malware attacks. It also requires no defragmenting of any kind. Although every OS has vulnerabilities, Linux gets patched usually within a day of any security issues being revealed.
8.File Cleaner: CCleaner and Norton System Works and Tune Up utilities
9.Defragger: Smart Defrag and Windows Defrag
Need comments about items nos 4 , 5 and 6 : are those a MUST for a PC ? Are other items enough for my PC(Laptop), if not , need some free programs for more protection.
Malware is an all inclusive word for spyware, trojans (disguised programs that run in the background on your PC), or adware. There are other bad things...to numerous to mention.
A Rootkit remover will (hopefully) find the process of a trojan by a signature or footprint and remove it. Unlike detecting a virus which is exact code present (hard to detect variants).
A Rootkit scanner finds...but does not remove.
Do you need to use these? It's all about how safe you want to be.