There are a large amount of antivirus, Trojan horse, spyware, Ad-ware, and worm protection programs available on the net and in your local computer store. Most of these do quite a good job of protecting your computer, but some have different performance hindering effects, and are a little invasive when it comes to controlling your internet traffic.
I don't use any protection software; in my personal opinion, it's not anywhere near worth the downsides of prompts every 2 minutes and my computer running more slowly than usual. A few simple steps can be followed to keep you virus, worm, Trojan horse, and spy/adware safe.
- Don't open E-mails from people you don't know, especially those with an attachment.
- Don't ever open a file that ends with .exe .dll .bat or .zip unless you specifically downloaded an installation or update. That type of file would almost never use an email to send you the file anyway, it would be an online download.
- Don't visit any sites you know can harm your computer. A simple standard is ‘don't do it if you don't trust it.'
Various insertion methods used to trick you into opening the malicious files are:
- An MSN message saying "Hey, check out my new photos!" and then providing a zip download or link.
- A crack website telling you to search for cracks or serials, then generating a contaminated EXE file under the name you search, no matter what the search. A search for "checkoutthisfakename for anarticleonviruses" came up with one match, a download for a file named: checkoutthisfakename_for_anarticleonviruses.exe.
- Music or video downloads on Limewire, Kazaa, Morpheus etc. that claim to be something you'd like to listen to or watch that are actually an EXE file that you open, and then have to basically wipe your OS clean in order to remove.
Protecting your PC is easy, it's much better to keep your PC clean than to have to clean it.
Don't open it if you didn't purposefully download it!
