Computer Corner

     Tips & Tricks for Computer Users

       By Richard Subbot, CARES Computer Instructor

Last time we talked about the necessity of having a firewall on your computer, which monitors Internet traffic coming to and going from your computer.  This article will discuss why you also need an antivirus program on your computer.

Most computer users have heard of malicious programs call viruses.  Unlike a “Trojan horse” file, these are actually “snippets” of code that can replicate themselves and can wreak all sorts of havoc on your computer – from erasing files on your hard drive, to watching your every keystroke (and thus stealing your data) to just acting as a nuisance by flashing strange messages on your screen.  Typically, a virus attaches itself to a program on your computer and does not “kick in” until the program starts.  So, they are difficult to discover without an antivirus program.

Hundreds of such antivirus programs now exist: Norton Antivirus, McAfee, Dr. Panda, Kapersky, BitDefender, to name a few of the well-known ones.  Prices vary for each and they all do a good job of protecting your computer from getting a virus, which can come from a malicious web site, or even from a friend’s flash stick or floppy disk.  Many of these packages also include firewalls and anti-spyware protection.

Many freebie antivirus programs exist, such as AntiVir Personal Edition, AVG or Avast Home Edition.  This author has used Avast for several years now with very good results.  But any antivirus program is better than no program. Having said that, you should never run multiple antivirus programs on a computer because each will think the other is a virus and will fight with each other.  This will result in slowing down your system performance and possibly leading to system crashes, as happened one time to this author.  It is an awesome thing to watch two separate programs fighting for control of your computer!

Be sure to keep your antivirus up to date with the latest virus “signatures.”  Programs like Avast will do this for you, sometimes as often as twice per day, and will alert you after having done the update (which requires an Internet connection).  Other antivirus programs require you to visit their web sites and manually download the latest signatures.

And be sure to run a complete virus scan on your computer at least once per week to make sure your machine is not infected.  But be prepared for a wait.  A thorough system scan can take up to an hour, or more, depending upon how many files you have on your machine.  So, go have lunch and come back when the scan is done.

Next time we will discuss spyware, what it is, and what you can do about it.

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