Monday, July 13, 2009

The Skinny On The Computer Virus

By Owen Hughes

What is a computer virus? Basically, it infects your computer in much the same way as a cold or influenza virus infects a human. Just like biological viruses, computer viruses can be something insignificant- written by a skinny geek in his bedroom. Alternatively, they can be as serious a swine flu- written by expert programmers, attempting to raise money from you, crash your computer, steal your data or worse.

The smaller, more annoying viruses may also go unnoticed for a period of time, sometimes being embedded with a code to activate at a date in the future. The result of this, unwanted activity is that your computer can become unstable and it may also affect other system resources and processes. Even if this effect is unintentional from the programmers point of view, they are no less annoying and potentially serious.

One sign that you may have a virus is that your computer slows down unexpectedly. Indeed any erratic behaviour from your computer should be investigated immediately. For example, if your screen flickers erratically (and you have checked your connections), you may have picked up a virus. Run a virus scan at least once a week from your anti-virus software program. You need to have the peace of mind that running a scan can provide.

A much bigger threat to the security of your computer comes from the big brothers of these little annoyances. Trojans can sit on your computer and mine data to go back to the virus originator. Key loggers can swipe the keystrokes whilst you are inputting data into a form and are highly serious. Malware and worms can also cause huge problems- you need to have a secure anti-virus program giving you real time protection against viruses. We recommend AVG anti-virus- their program is nothing short of excellent, particularly for a free piece of software.

We receive telephone calls every week from people who don't have anti-virus software and find their computer behaving erratically. Running your computer without anti-virus software is like making love without contraception. Don't do it if you aren't prepared for the outcome, however unintentional. Please make sure you get AVG free downloaded and then run a virus scan.

You may find it to be surprising that AVG free performs much better than many of the commercial programs available over the counter or for download Most of the poor performing software programs offer very limited protection and also insist on your renewing the subscription annually (or after the free 3 months subscription is finished)

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