Protect Your Computer With Antivirus

Introduction

Antiviruses these days are much less important than in the days when computers worked without connection to the internet i.e. when internet as we know it now did not exist. This is because in the old days software was not downloaded but was written to the disks and carried from a computer to a computer by people so there was a big probability of the software to be infected as quite often people did not know where the software came from as well as the identity of a person who started the distribution of the software.

Today the situation is quite different. Almost everything is downloaded from the web and if company is legitimate, the website will be authenticated and the software will be clean. Even if installation is carried out from a CD or a DVD, people then quite often go to the internet to check if a new version of the software has been published and download and install it to have the up to date version of the software.

Sometimes companies that produce software put it to the special sites for downloads and quote checksum for the file. In this case after downloading the file, user should compare the given checksum with the downloaded file's checksum - there are special utilities for doing that. If they are the same, the file is fine. If they are not the same, the file has been tampered with (remember, a user has downloaded it from a public server) and should be immediately deleted.

In my view, the antivirus on the computer nowadays for people who are careful with their emails and careful with what they download is needed just-in-case and for preventive purposes. The firewall is much more important. If the firewall is up to date, set up correctly and operational, the risk for the computer to get infected without a user being careless is minimal if not non-existent. Nevertheless, the good antivirus should be present on the user's computer just to reassure a user that his or her computer is all right, not infected and clean. "Nothing found" message at the end of the scan gives the feeling of the safe computer, and only for that an antivirus on the pc is a necessity.

Which antivirus to choose

There are plenty of antiviruses out there. If you've already bought a firewall together with antivirus, you don't need an additional antivirus - the one that comes with the firewall will do the job. There are total internet security solutions out there like Kaspersky, Norton, McAfee, AVG and many others that include firewall, antivirus, antispyware and other "anti" elements in them like anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-adware etc.

If you've only got firewall on its own or are using the Windows firewall, then you'd need to get an antivirus separately. I recommend the free antiviruses Avast and AVG. Both of them provide standard real-time web protection, email protection, network protection and some other services - it's for you to decide whether they will be useful on your computer or not. Some people say Avast is better but it is up to you what to choose.

You can of course buy an antivirus. But in my view buying an antivirus on its own i.e. when it is not sold as a part of a firewall/antispyware solution does not make sense because there are mentioned above good enough free antiviruses, which can get the job done.

What to do with the antivirus

Let it work and protect your computer in real time. If you download or open something dodgy, it should warn you immediately and quarantine or delete an infected file depending on your preferences and what could be done to a virus that has infected this file. Do not forget to set up automatic updates and new version notifications.

Couple of words about spyware protection

Windows Defender is an antispyware program and is already included in Vista and can be downloaded from Microsoft to be installed on Windows XP for free. Despite the reviews that don't give it much credit, in my view it is wise to get it and run it once in a while to check your pc for the presence of spyware. Other tools include widely used Spyware Doctor, AVG Anti-Spyware and some other free tools that will check your computer for trojans and other nasty malicious software and clean it up if necessary. I recommend getting couple of these tools installed but disable real-time protection for all of them except one as they can block each other. When you decide to check your pc, start the selected tool, get the latest spyware definitions from the internet and run the scan. Make sure that you don't run two or more of these tools at the same time.

Again, if up to date and properly configured firewall is installed and running and web browsing and email checking is careful and responsible, then you should not get the malicious software on your pc. There may be some tracking cooking found or some harmless adware but that's it. You can easily get rig of those by clearing cache, temporary files and personal data in your internet browser. Find out how to do that in the article how to browse the internet safely and securely.

Tips

• Always keep your antivirus up to date, update its version and virus definitions regularly.
• When downloading software, always check that the website name is spelled correctly, that the website itself is legitimate and authenticated.
• When checking the mail, never open documents or run attachments from the sources that you're not familiar with. It's better to miss an email you're not expecting than to infect your computer through carelessness.
• Do not go to the dodgy websites and download the software from them.
• Before you install a new antivirus, it is imperative that you remove an antivirus that is already installed on your computer as two antiviruses on one machine can cause a software conflict.
• Run antivirus scan manually or automatically at least once every two weeks.

Related articles

How to Choose a Firewall For Your Computer

Browsing Internet Safely and Securely