Good antivirus software is a must to detect viruses and quarantine or eliminate them. There is a wide variety of antivirus programs available in the market and the following is a quick guide to finding the good ones.
1. The antivirus software must be able to give both passive and online protection. Passive protection provides service on demand like when scanning specific drives or files to detect possible virus infection. Online or active protection is a memory resident antivirus program that continuously looks for probable incoming virus threats.
2. Independent testing agencies like Checkmark, PC World, AV test.org etc. give out periodical recommendations on antivirus software available in the market. They could be consulted before selecting a particular software package. Anti Trojan forum rates anti Trojan software periodically; this provides a good idea about the quality of the software. More than one antivirus or anti Trojan software would be required in order to protect from all possible threats.
3. The anti virus software should be constantly updated in order to keep newly emerging viruses at bay. There is an ongoing battle between creators of viruses and antivirus software developers. New patches are made available within hours of detection of a new virus by antivirus software developers and are updated online to all customers. Hence antivirus programs can become obsolete very quickly if not updated in time.
Many ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and email service providers offer server side protection against spams and viruses. They should be preferred in order have an additional layer of protection.
To conclude, in order to protect from viruses the computer user must have good antivirus software that is constantly updated, follow safe practices and he / she must always be alert any new developments as the battle is an ongoing and continuous one.
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