The Computer Virus: 10 Ways to Protect Yourself
You may already have had a bad experience with a computer viruses. If this is true then you may have been due to opening an email from some one you didn’t know, or from downloading a ton of different files off the internet. Either way, if you want to ensure this doesn’t happen again, the you should read this article to guard yourself against the annoying computer bugs.
Listed below are some of the guidelines you can follow in order to keep those nasty viruses from making a mess out of your computer and your life.
1. Get yourself some antivirus software from a respected company such as Norton Antivirus software. You should set it up to run automatically every time you turn your computer on.
2. Your anti virus software must be kept up to date. You can do this by checking it manually on a weekly basis, or on some software, this can be set up automatically for you.
3. The antivirus software can also scan for Macro Viruses. This type of virus is usually hidden in word processing documents that you may receive in an email.
4. Downloading software from the internet should be done as little as possible. There are many neat programs available on the internet, but unfortunately there are many viruses that go along with them also.
5. Resist swapping data with the use of floppy disks or other mobile storage devices between various computers. If exchanging programs between computers is unavoidable just make sure to scan the storage device(s) for viruses before transferring data from one computer to the next.
6. You must format floppy discs the first time that they are used to transfer data.
7. Don’t install any software that hasn’t been purchased from a well known and trusted vendor.
8. Never install software that is pirated. This is not only illegal but also a great way to get infected with a virus.
9. Before you open and install a program you have downloaded of the internet, ALWAYS scan them for computer viruses.
10. Back up your files on regular basis so that if you do get infected, you can delete the corrupted files and replace them with clean ones that were saved earlier.
Following the steps I have laid out won’t guarantee that you will not be infected, but it will make you far less likely of becoming a victim of a dreaded computer virus.