There is nothing as annoying as getting a virus while you were surfing on the internet. To prevent alot of trouble it is smart to install a virusscanner or to setup a firewall on your computer. It is both very easy to do and you can even get a free virusscanner if you want.
What is a virusscanner?
A virusscanner is a program which you could install on your computer to keep it safe from viruses. You'll need a virusscanner because there is alot of 'unwanted trash' which you could download to your computer without asking for it. Besides viruses there are other dangerous things which could damage your computer for example: Trojan horses, worms, logic bombs and spyware. First we start to explain what the different kind of viruses are.
Trojan horses
A trojan horse is a program or a file which looks tempting but when you have it installed on your pc it will do everything to steal your personal information (named after the horse of Troje) and it will try to control your pc. An example of a trojan horse are RAT's (Remote Acces Tools). Trojan horses are often send as a attachment from a e-mail, hid as a love letter or as pornographic files.
Worms
Worms work the same as a trojan horse (the program looks tempting but once on the computer it tries to destroy it) except that worms can work on their own. A worm spreads through unsecured networks and they will slow down your pc.
A logic bomb
A logic bomb isn't that commen nowadays. However it still is annoying if you have a logic bomb in your list of installed software. As the name says a logic bomb works like a bomb, after a set amount of time has passed the bomb will delete software from your pc.
Spyware
Spyware isn't bad for your computer but it will reduce your privacy. Spyware will trace what you are doing and what kind of websites you visit and the virus will save it to a database / file on your computer. When the creator of the spyware got the amount of info he wanted he can sell it for a huge amount of money to certain company's.
Virusscanners
A usefull protection against viruses and spyware is a virusscanner. However some of the virusscanners out there are pretty expensive, so i will create both a top 5 of the free virusscanners and a top 5 of the paid virusscanners. When you are looking for a virusscanner make sure that you get a trusted virusscanner. Before you start downloading your virusscanner it is clever to to a little bit of research about the virusscanner that you are planning to download and read about experience from other users.
Top 5 free virusscanners
- Avg Antivirus 2013
- Avast! Antivirus
- Avira Free Antivirus
- Microsoft Security Essentials
- Ad-Aware Free Antivirus
Top 5 paid virusscanners
- Eset Nod Antivirus 5
- Kasperskyp Anti-Virus
- Bitdefender Antivirus Plus
- Avast! Pro Antivirus
- Norton Antivirus 360
Stay up to date
When you installed a virusscanner on your pc it is protected against virusses but it is important to update your virusscanner once in a while because when time passes hackers develop new sorts of virusses with different algorithms on which your current (outdated) virusscanner is not prepared for. So when you update your virusscanner it will protect you again versus the newest virusses.
Almost any virusscanner shows a popup there is a update available which you could download with a simple press of the button. When you are using a free virusscanner it is important to check the website of the producer of your virusscanner to see if they have released any updates for your scanner!
I hope that this will help you chosing a virusscanner! And i hope that you learned something from this post because a virusscanner will help you to protect you from the different kinds of evil lurking around on the internet! Please stay tuned for the next post!
Credits:
- Trojan horse picture
- Spyware picture
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