Datamation has a good piece out titled 50 Must-Have Open Source Tools for Security. The applications are organized into categories such as encryption, anti-virus and forensics. When it comes to security software, both the open source arena and the freeware arena offer very solid applications. Here are a few open source security apps that I agree with Datamation on, and some top-notch freeware choices to boot.

Many users of open source software point to the fact that their applications and platforms are more secure than proprietary alternatives simply because they aren't such obvious targets for malware distribution. As just one example, the Standish Group recently completed a survey in which 70 percent of respondents said Red Hat Linux is less vulnerable to security threats than Windows. Still, it's good to protect yourself with top-notch security applications, and LinuxPlanet has an excellent list of 75 good choices--mostly for Linux users. Here, I'll round up 10 of my favorite choices from their list for multipe platforms, and discuss what these applications can do for you.

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