Dangers On Your Desktop: Computer Virus And Spyware

By: John Francis Amberden

So have you bought a new computer at home for yourself and for your kids? Your computer is sure going to be useful to you and your family. You can now use your computer to store important data, work on reports and much much more. Your children can now surf the internet, play games and learn new tools and software programs. By purchasing a computer you open the world to the big bad world of the internet. Why is the internet a big bad world? The internet can prove to be a big bad world for you if you don’t take care to protect your computer from internet threats. In fact the internet is the most comprehensive source of information available at the click of the button today. You can search for diverse topics. You can use the internet to access your bank accounts, to join newsgroups, to entertain yourselves, listen to music and even watch movies. You can even use the internet to speak to people at low costs through VOIP (Voice over Transmission Protocol) all over the world. There are very few boundaries associated with the internet.

But, you should be wary of all the threats that the internet can invite to your computer. First of all let’s talk a little about computer viruses. A computer virus is a software program written by a person which can prove to be a threat to the security of your computer. It gains access to your computer through programs downloaded from the internet and even from seemingly harmless emails. It can delete all your important files after it loads itself on the system or it can just make your hard disk unusable. It can disable your important device drivers and can do hundreds of other damaging things to your computer. The software program (or computer virus) spreads rapidly through the internet and can invade thousands of computers a minute.

The best solution against virus invasion is the installation of good antivirus software. Norton Antivirus by Symantec proves to be one of the better paid antivirus solutions. It provides tight security in comparison to some of the other antivirus softwares and also updates itself regularly. The other important software you can use to protect your computer is installing a firewall. A firewall restricts unauthorized access to your computer by people on the internet who are constantly on the lookout for open ports on computers. In addition, if you use the internet to make purchases with your credit card, make sure you are using a trusted and secure site. Secured sites conduct financial transactions using secure software like Verisign so that your private information cannot be viewed by unauthorized people.

When using services or programs that use passwords, always use passwords that are difficult to guess by others. Do not ever open unauthorized emails as they might be harmful to your computer. Unauthorized or unsolicited mails are the most common path to spreads a virus through the internet.

When you visit some sites, a spyware program maybe installed on your computer automatically by those sites. A spyware program is a program that collects all information on your computer including private information that can then be made known to unauthorized people. Using an anti-spyware program like Spyware Blocker or Ad-Aware comes in handy. These programs work to prevent spyware from automatically installing on your computer in the first place. You must also delete your cookies regularly. A cookie is a small file that is automatically installed on your computer and it accesses the information on your computer including the web sites that you have visited and sends all information back to people who need access to that information.

If you use a little care, you can provide some protection to you and your computer. However, the only way to completely eliminate any threats is not to go online in the first place. I don’t think that is a viable option in today’s world. Good luck!

Searching For Free Antivirus Software

By: George Royal

These are some of the best, completely free antivirus software and add-ons available on the internet for download.

Avast Home Edition: This is a completely free but one of the best antivirus applications available anywhere, which is intended for non-commercial use. You can download and register it on their website (www.avast.com) free of cost. The Avast Home Edition features an On Demand Scanner, On Access Scanner (to protect e-mail clients, instant messengers, etc). It also has P2P protection and a lightweight firewall. The NNTP Scanner can scan all Usenet Newsgroup traffic and all operations with files on PC. It also has a real-time protection feature which is rather powerful. Program and database updates are also incredibly fast.

602LAN Suite (http://www.software602.com/products/ls/): This secure mail server has an inbuilt antivirus and anti-spam guard. The firewall is meant to control internet sharing and is equipped with NAT and Web content filter proxy. It also features standards based SSL SMTP/POP3 e-mail server that enables encrypted communication, junk mail protection and an integrated fax server. Access to the Web mail client, shared address book, remote administration and user home pages is provided by the integrated Web server. Other features include includes text content based Bayesian spam filter, Web Mail Client with WAP support, network address translation, attachment filter, PureSight proxy content filter, auto-update and ActiveReports.

AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic (http://www.free-av.com/): Another one of the few, but great free antivirus software available for download. The AntiVir PersonalEdition is for individual and private use on a single PC-workstation only, which can detect and remove more than 230,000 known viruses. It features a resident Virus Guard which monitors file movements automatically such as downloading of data from the internet. It scans and repairs macro viruses and protects against boot record viruses and master boot record viruses, Trojans, worms, and other malicious activities. You can easily update the database and support is free of charge through the AntiVir Bulletin Board (http://forum.antivir.de/).

AVG Free Edition: The free edition is available to home users for personal and non-commercial use on a single computer. Though it is limited in features compared to its professional counterpart, the AVG Free Edition does include useful features such as Automatic healing, Reliable scanning engine, Scheduled scanning frequency and Scheduled update frequency (both once a day only), Optional automatic update upon Internet detection, and Options to define file name extensions. There is also no technical support available.

Futureca AntiVirus Outlook: This is a special add-on designed specifically for Microsoft Outlook. It scans all incoming and outgoing mail messages for viruses in real time, and immediately alerts the user if it detects one. It is quite useful if you are a regular Outlook user, and the virus definition database can easily be updated over the internet. You can download it from http://www.futureca.com/downloads.htm.

RAV4ICQ (http://www.ravantivirus.com/): This is a free antivirus program intended to be integrated into ICQ, one of the most popular instant messengers in the world. The program checks for and removes several types of viruses, worms, Trojans and other malwares. It is easily configurable and can scan inside archives and take the desired actions for infected/suspicious files, and creates a log file for later reference.

Article Source: http://www.onestoparticles.com

Avast Antivirus Home Edition

By: Danny Wirken

Prior to trying the Avast 4.6 Home Edition, I was very much a Norton user. I knew there were a lot of free antivirus software out there but I wanted to be on the safe side and use something tried and true. However, with the increase of spyware and virus attacks, my computer was not always spared and there were times I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. That’s when I thought that it was time to try something new – and free.

Installation is very easy. Just download the software from the Avast website, free of charge. The only catch – if you can consider it that – is that it is for personal, non-commercial use only. The installation process is mostly automatic. You can choose to register it after installation in order to access free updates for one year. If you do not choose to register it then you can use it for 60 days free. Since the registration is free as well, there is no reason not to do that.

The user interface is simple and easy to use. Some people might not find that it doesn’t suit their taste as it looks something like Winamp – it looks fun, not very serious. However, that doesn’t take away its functionality. It actually adds to the experience as you can change the skin if you want to.

It gives you the option to run 7 providers. You can choose which ones you want to run. I use the following shields: Instant Messaging, Internet Mail, Network Shield, P2P Shield, Standard Shield, and Web Shield. If you use Outlook then you can opt to use that provider as well. The above-mentioned shields pretty much cover everything you do on your computer, providing extensive protection. The Web Shield is by far the latest impressive addition to this release. It monitors all internet traffic including spyware. It is also compatible with most internet browsers. If you are worried about the effect on speed, your worries are unfounded.

A drawback of this software is that it takes too much time to load up when you first turn your computer on. It may take several minutes. In the meantime, it would be difficult for you to run applications.

I think that is a minor inconvenience you can put up with. For something that is free and works effectively, I wouldn’t mind waiting for a couple of minutes.