Get wise about viruses and keep your computer infection free.
Recognize the symptoms:
The effect of a virus on your computer can be mild or hazardous. Some viruses are relatively harmless and may only display words or images on your screen. The more serious viruses can change, delete, or damage files in your computer. A few can keep your computer from working at all.
The symptoms of a hardware glitch or software glitch can be similar to virus symptoms. So how do you know if your computer is infected??? Besides looking for the obvious symptoms like jumbled words or disappearing files, keep an eye out for problems like your system slowing down or not responding, or your program or memory changing size. If you suspect a virus you need to run an anti-virus program immediately.
Avoid contagious files:
Knowing how a virus spreads can help you shield your computer. These are the common ways your computer can pick up a virus:
1 - Someone sends you an infected e-ma9l attachment or an infected e-mail.
2 - You download a file from he Internet without realizing the file has a virus.
3 - You get an infected disk or CD.
4 - A software program has an infected macro. A macro is just a little file that automatically runs several commands back to back. Macros can be added to many commonly used software programs like Microsoft Word or Excel.
Viruses can spread across the network, both home and business.
The best wya to protect your information and your investment is to head off viruse before they hit. A few ounces of prevention can help repel viruses and keep your computer in tip top running condition.
Get and install anti-virus software. Both Norton Antivirus at:
www.symantec. com
and McAfee;'s VirusScan at:
www.mcafee.com
are good anti-virus programs. Either one can be downloaded on a trial basis. Scan your whole hard disk right after you install the software.
Keep your anti-virus software enabled and running all the time. Never disable the software unless specifically instructed to do so.
Make an emergency disk immediately if your anti-virus installation instructions encourage you to do so. If you are ever infected with a virus, removing the bug will be much easier if the disk is ready.
Schedule and run automatic or manual scans at LEAST every week. (the more the better)
Obtain virus updates several times a month. New viruses break out constantly so don't just assume your computer is protected. Some anti-virus programs can be set to automatically download and install the updates. You can also do it yourself by going to the manufacturersweb site. Updating can take as little as a minute and it can save you hours or days of work if bug gets into your system.
Set your anti-virus program to check all incoming files, downloaded files, e-mails, and e-mail attachments. hat way if Norton's detects a virus in an incoming e-mail it will display a "Virus Found" message.
Download only from reputable sites to avoid Trojan horses and other threats. Trojan Horses masquerade as helpful programs as the deliver viruses and other trouble-making software.
Manually scan any new floppy disks, zip disks, or other removable disks.
Scan compressed files both before AND after unzipping.
Back up your data files. If a virus ever damages your computer you won't lose your valuable data.
Recognize the symptoms:
The effect of a virus on your computer can be mild or hazardous. Some viruses are relatively harmless and may only display words or images on your screen. The more serious viruses can change, delete, or damage files in your computer. A few can keep your computer from working at all.
The symptoms of a hardware glitch or software glitch can be similar to virus symptoms. So how do you know if your computer is infected??? Besides looking for the obvious symptoms like jumbled words or disappearing files, keep an eye out for problems like your system slowing down or not responding, or your program or memory changing size. If you suspect a virus you need to run an anti-virus program immediately.
Avoid contagious files:
Knowing how a virus spreads can help you shield your computer. These are the common ways your computer can pick up a virus:
1 - Someone sends you an infected e-ma9l attachment or an infected e-mail.
2 - You download a file from he Internet without realizing the file has a virus.
3 - You get an infected disk or CD.
4 - A software program has an infected macro. A macro is just a little file that automatically runs several commands back to back. Macros can be added to many commonly used software programs like Microsoft Word or Excel.
Viruses can spread across the network, both home and business.
The best wya to protect your information and your investment is to head off viruse before they hit. A few ounces of prevention can help repel viruses and keep your computer in tip top running condition.
Get and install anti-virus software. Both Norton Antivirus at:
www.symantec. com
and McAfee;'s VirusScan at:
www.mcafee.com
are good anti-virus programs. Either one can be downloaded on a trial basis. Scan your whole hard disk right after you install the software.
Keep your anti-virus software enabled and running all the time. Never disable the software unless specifically instructed to do so.
Make an emergency disk immediately if your anti-virus installation instructions encourage you to do so. If you are ever infected with a virus, removing the bug will be much easier if the disk is ready.
Schedule and run automatic or manual scans at LEAST every week. (the more the better)
Obtain virus updates several times a month. New viruses break out constantly so don't just assume your computer is protected. Some anti-virus programs can be set to automatically download and install the updates. You can also do it yourself by going to the manufacturersweb site. Updating can take as little as a minute and it can save you hours or days of work if bug gets into your system.
Set your anti-virus program to check all incoming files, downloaded files, e-mails, and e-mail attachments. hat way if Norton's detects a virus in an incoming e-mail it will display a "Virus Found" message.
Download only from reputable sites to avoid Trojan horses and other threats. Trojan Horses masquerade as helpful programs as the deliver viruses and other trouble-making software.
Manually scan any new floppy disks, zip disks, or other removable disks.
Scan compressed files both before AND after unzipping.
Back up your data files. If a virus ever damages your computer you won't lose your valuable data.
