Computersight -

Viruses have been around for decades since computers were made. And their motives? To ruin other people’s lives, financial gain, revenge, the challenge, or just or the fun of it. There are a lot of people out there who are constantly making viruses. In 2003, the PC Viruses costed businesses about 55 billion dollars in damages, reported from Trendmicro. This proves how dangerous they are. As of January 2002, the number of known viruses were above 70,000. Despite all these dangers, all lot of people go about their business on the computer completely naked (protection wise). They simply open their modem, and right when the modem connects, a hacker who is scanning for open ports can pick up one of the user’s unprotected ones and establish a connection, allowing the hacker to bring in malware. Easily, just by visiting a webpage, drive-by-downloads can infect your computer too.

Simple computer security measures can be taken to prevent the armies of unwanted programs out there from coming in. First of all, there is the firewall. Windows XP originally can with ICF (Internet Connection Firewall), but it wasn’t enough, so upon the release of service pack 2, the firewall was replaced by Windows Firewall. Both versions, however, do not support one important feature, that is outbound monitoring. If a hacker were to compromise you internet connection and break through your firewall, outbound filtering can block the attacker from sending personal information for leaving your computer, thus buying time for yourself to install an antivirus program that can eliminate the threat or to backup the important things then perform a full hard drive reformat.

Second, is antivirus programs. A lot of antivirus programs exist out there, but not all of them protect you as they claim on their homepage. Antivirus component in your computer security is crucial, because it blocks viruses from ruining your computer. So antivirus programs can detect spyware even though they aren’t made to, by heuristics scanning or if the signatures of its database matches closely to the spyware. Installing top rated antivirus software is exremely important, even if you have to pay for it. Free antivirus programs either offer you the most basic protection, only including components you really need in the paid version, and some offer on-access protection (protection while surfing the web or doing anything) instead only on-demand scanning (scanning your computer when you manually start it).  Antivirus ratings can be found at http://www.toptenreviews.com under the antivirus section, and their statistics at http://www.av-test.org. Always consult these unbiased reviews before making a decision on which product you want.

Third, is antispyware programs. Antispyware are much like antiviruses, except they protect you from spyware. Spyware are programs that secretly steal you personal information, bombard you with pop-ups (adware also does that), fill your hard drive(s) with useless junk, record keyboard strokes, and many other things. The same thing applies when it comes to free and paid versions. Most free versions do not protect you, only scans and remove spyware.

There are plenty of antivirus software to choose from, but only one is right for you. If you are a gamer and do not want the software to affect your computer performance, then programs like Avira ClassicEdition(free), Eset Nod32(paid), and AVG(free and paid versions) are right for you.  All three programs use little computer resources compared to products like Mcafe and Norton, and still offer good protection. Eset Nod32 and Avg(paid) both have gaming modes, where popups are extremely limited unless there is something dangerous, or postponed until you are done. Business users ought to use Enterprise editions of the major antivirus companies such as Norton, Mcafee, and Kaspersky.

There are stand-alone virus removers out there, made fre from antivirus companies, to remove infections that cannot be blocked or removed by antivirus programs. These are not substitues as they only scan and remove, not protect you all the time.

Lastly, you need to know how distinguish a legit antivirus program and one that is rouge. Rouge programs such as Antivirus 2009 and Antispware 2009 (and its predecessors 2008 and 2007 version) are fake and do the oppsoite of what real antivirus software do. They open up a hole in your computer and allow in viruses. System Defender and Spyware Protector should also be warned against. Usually these rouge software are shown thriugh pop-ups, lying to you that you are seriously infected. During their scans, they show numerous infections that are either fake or important system files. A list of rouge antispyware programs can be found http://www.spywarewarrior.com.