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How To Avoid A Potentially Dangerous Computer Virus
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By Jeff Usher
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The fact is, virus coders are becoming more sophisticated everyday. As computer users become more educated and anti virussoftware gets more effective, virus coders are always lookingfor ways to get past both internet users and anti virus software.
This means that users need to remain ever vigilant to avoidbecoming the victim of a potentially very harmful computervirus. It is important for every computer owner to know that notall viruses are the same. Some computer viruses are justannoying, generating popup ads as you browse the web, orincreasing the amount of SPAM you receive.
Other types of computer virus, however, can be more dangerous.Some computer viruses can wipe out a hard drive, or steal yourpersonal information and files. To make matters worse, somecomputer viruses are able to hide in a computer for some time,activating at a future date and doing their damage whentriggered by certain events or dates.
Fortunately, computer owners do not have to be at the mercy ofcomputer virus coders. There are a number of measures computerusers can take to protect themselves from viruses, Trojanhorses, adware, spyware and other malicious code on theinternet.
For starters, it is essential that all computer users install agood quality anti virus software program BEFORE their computeris connected to the internet. This is because there are programsthat constantly search the internet, looking for computers thatare unprotected by virus scanning software. A recent survey by asecurity organisation found that it takes only minutes for acomputer to become infected with viruses and spyware. Installingan anti virus software program is vital to protecting yourselffrom these malicious programs.
It is also important to update that anti virus software programon a regular basis. In the past, many computer security expertsrecommended doing updates on a weekly basis, but most agree thatweekly updates are no longer sufficient. It is generally best toupdate the anti virus software you install daily, and toschedule those updates to run automatically. Running the updatesautomatically will ensure you do not forget to update thesoftware, and running the updates daily will ensure that you areprotected against the latest threats.
Most users will want to schedule the updates to their virusscanning software to occur during the night, when they areasleep. Running these updates when the computer is not in use isa good idea for a number of reasons. For one thing, updating theanti virus software when the computer is not in use will ensurethat there are no conflicts, and that the program is able toupdate itself to detect the latest computer virus. Running theupdates after hours will also prevent the updates frominterfering with web surfing or any other activity. Running acomputer virus protection update can sometimes interfere withother software, so it is best to run it automatically, when youdo not need the computer for other things.
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