Do You Need an Anti-Virus Program?
A computer virus is your enemy – big time. It typically attaches itself to other programs which must be run in order for the virus to be activated. It may only do minor damage, for example it might display bugs running around on your screen; or it could do major damage like erasing everything on your hard drive and disabling your computer. Obviously you must protect yourself.
A computer virus is your enemy – big time. It typically attaches itself to other programs which must be run in order for the virus to be activated. The damage that it does may be minor, for example it might just display bugs running around your screen; or it could do major damage like erasing everything on your hard drive and disabling your computer. Obviously you must protect yourself.
A virus attacks your computer system and hides in many ways. It can search your hard drive and find a place to hide itself. It may alter certain information contained on your hard drive to try and hide from your anti-virus software. The virus may monitor when files are opened and closed and try to protect itself by temporarily removing itself and replacing itself with an uninfected file. (These bad guys are very clever.) It may reproduce itself; it may transform itself to escape identification. It may create a backup, so if the original is detected and removed, the backup still infects your computer.
How does anti-virus software work? Actually it’s very ingenious. The anti-virus software scans all your files looking to match “signatures” for known viruses. Every anti-virus program has a list (directory) of known virus markings (”signatures”) and it seeks to discover if your computer has any of these in any program on your hard drive. Since new viruses are constantly cropping up, these directories must be updated frequently with new “signatures.” Good anti-virus programs also look to identify suspicious behavior of any program on your computer which might indicate a virus is present. When your anti-virus program finds a virus, it may attempt to repair the file by removing the virus, or quarantine the file so it can’t spread the virus or infect other programs, or it may delete the entire file.
Norton and McAfee are the 600-pound gorillas in the anti-virus field, but they are known to have some drawbacks. For example, they may slow your computer’s performance. They may interfere with you trying to run other programs and with downloading and/or updating other programs. Investigate these two anti-virus programs carefully and look at some other anti-virus programs. Whatever you do, do not put more than one anti-virus program on your computer. Each thinks the other is a virus, and that’s asking for trouble.
How do you get a virus? Many things you do on a computer hooked to the internet could allow a virus to install itself. When you download a free game, a free movie, or a song; when you open an e-mail attachment, you may be opening up your computer for a virus invasion. Viruses are often attached to seemingly innocent files.
How do you know if you have a virus on your computer? If your computer is behaving erratically or in any way performing differently from usual, you may have a virus. If your computer is dead in the water and won’t start, you may have a virus.
I strongly recommend you do some research, investigate carefully and put an anti-virus program on your computer. I also recommend that you schedule daily scans to protect yourself, and daily updates. I have anti-virus software on each of my computers and they are scanned and updated automatically on startup.
Joe Starr writes on a variety of subjects to keep his brain from fogging over. Visit his anti-virus blog at http://www.blogger.com for more information.