What is antivirus software?
Antivirus software is exactly what it says on the box, it protects your computer from becoming infected by viruses and other malicious software. Do not confuse this with Anti spyware software these are different products.
OK so what is a virus?
A Virus can come in many forms, and does not necessarily have to been downloaded and manually run by you. Some viruses are spread via email, these are usually an attachment either from someone you know or do not know that you were not expecting. Once run, it’s likely that this kind of virus will send itself on to people in your email address list. The address the email is sent from is not necessarily the person that’s sent you the virus, quite often the address will be a random one from the infected person address list, or even your own email address. This kind of virus is likely to continue to send out emails until you PC has been disinfected.
Other Virus’s come in the for of Trojans, these are files that pretend to be something that they are not, so you will download them from the internet e.g. a new media player, run them and willingly infect your pc. Trojans can have many effects on your PC, including harvesting information about you, your surfing habits and your username/passwords and sending them on to remote websites.
Worms are another form of virus; these can infect a pc without you having to do anything at all, plugging in a USB memory stick, connecting to the internet using a CD ROM etc… can be all that is needed to allow your PC to become infected. These can effect PC performance, prevent applications from working, and occasionally prevent your PC from booting altogether.
The above are just very loose examples of different types of viruses and there effects, in actual fact you may already be infected and not know it, it’s possible to experience no symptoms whatsoever. Always make sure you have antivirus software installed, and updated to the correct version before connecting your PC to the internet or using any external data devices.
What software should I use?
Would you pay for something that you didn’t need to? Obviously not so then why pay for antivirus software?
There are 2 main free antivirus providers, these are AVG and AVAST both work extremely well, and are free for life! So for all those people who have been paying expensive annually recurring charges I’m sorry but you have been had. Microsoft is also due to release its free anti virus software, this will be called Morro, and I will update the article with a download link once it’s been released.
What should I do if I’m infected?
First things first you should disconnect your pc form any home network to prevent any further PC’s in your house from becoming infected. Then you should install one of the above free antivirus products and perform a full system scan, once the software has been updated. Occasionally viruses will prevent the installation of antivirus software once you are infected, if this is the case and you require assistance getting your PC up and running again, maybe a local PC tech will be able to assist you.