Thanks to the exaggerated dangers posed by the Conficker worm, many are wondering if they are safe from the predictions of gloom and doom expected to hit internet connected PCs on April 1.

Luckily, it takes very little to be prepared for and stop Conficker from impacting your PC and ending the world as we know it. All hype aside, PC users need only to turn to two well-known security software vendors to check for and remove Conficker for the shocking price of free.

F-Secure and BitDefenter have placed free tools on their respective Web sites that detect and remove Conficker. The idea is for those companies to tout their wares, while offering a valuable service. F-secure is offering its free Web-based service called EasyClean (http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/onlineservices/fsec/fsec.shtml) to remove Conficker and many other malware ills. EasyClean works by downloading and executing a small application, which then scans the PC (with a little help from F-Secure’s Web site) and removes viruses, worms and other bits of evil code. It’s a simple process and something most people should do, especially if they are running outdated security software.

A visit to Bitdefender’s BDTools.Net website (http://www.bdtools.net/) offers a quick and simple way to check for Conficker and all of its various iterations. Bitdefender is taking more of a straightforward approach by offering an executable file (for both single PC and network PCs) that targets Conficker, Kido and other variants of the Win32.Worm.Downadup.Gen. For those that are running antivirus protection, it sure doesn’t hurt to give BitDefender’s “Downadup” application a try.

Thanks to F-Secure and BitDefender, there’s now no excuse to act immediately to stop Conficker in its tracks and perhaps, while you’re at it, upgrade your anti-malware applications and apply all of the latest patches.

Conficker is one case where it is easy to be safe instead of sorry.