Need a free Anti-Virus program?

Having an anti-virus program (AV program) running on your computer is imperative to its healthy operation. Not only should you have an AV program installed and running on your computer, but your virus definitions should be up-to-date as well.

What are virus definitions, you ask? Well, they are simply data files that define what a virus looks like so these data files can say to your AV program, “Hey! Look! There’s a virus! Get it!” And since there are always new viruses being written (yes, I said written..by people that is!), you need to have your AV program set so that it automatically keeps up-to-date with the latest viruses.

I said viruses were “written,” because they are written…by people…malicious people who have nothing better to do with their lives then try to mess with others’ computers. A lot of times, they are written by young kids who get a rush from doing it. Or they want notoriety. But I digress.

Back to the subject at hand.

Not only does this program find viruses, but it also finds Trojan Horses, which are also written by humans. Trojan Horses are the worst type of threat, as these are executable programs that hackers (malicious computer nerds) use to watch what you are typing into your computer. You usually get Trojan Horses via email, but there are other ways to get them as well (downloading something you did not ask for, but were prompted to download when surfing websites, for instance (do NOT do this), or being on an infected network).

With these Trojan Horses, hackers can potentially see you typing in your usernames, passwords, card card info, bank info, etc. However, they have to be online and executing the Trojan Horse on your computer while you are online doing this, which is not that probable, but is possible. In any case, you want to get rid of these as well.

The program is called AVG Anti-Virus FREE Edition, and you can get it here.

Make sure, when you install it, that you perform a Live Update so that it has the latest virus definitions, as stated above. And don’t just do it once. You need to keep on performing this Live Update until it tells you that you have all of the updates. Once this is done, scan your computer. Hopefully it will not find anything. Then, have it set to scan your system every day at a certain time when your computer is on, but you will most likely not be using it.

Protection is key to keeping your system safe from threats, and this free program is just the program to do it.

However, this is not the only program that you need to keep your system running smoothly. There are other types of threats. See my post, “Is your computer taken over by popups?”