| There are several very good commercial anti-virus | | | | machine even more secure: |
| packages out on the market right now, but current | | | | 1. ThreatFire. This program (get the free version) sits |
| research concludes that none of them are able to | | | | on the computer and acts as a gate-keeper between |
| catch everything that is out in the wild. Add to this | | | | Windows and the Internet. If it sees some suspicious |
| the fact that you can have only one resident | | | | activity, it will throw up an alert box for the user to |
| Anti-Virus product installed on your machine at any | | | | respond to. I have seem this program take out some |
| given time, and it becomes obvious that there will be | | | | major malwares when the resident scanner had failed |
| a few holes in your security setup even with a | | | | to. If a machine is already infected, this one may still |
| commercial package. And those commercial packages | | | | install. |
| cost as much as $90.00 to protect three to five | | | | 2. MalwareBytes anti-malware. Again with the free |
| computers for a year. | | | | version this is a very good stand alone scanner. You |
| Now much of the value in the commercial packages | | | | have to manually update the free version, but it is |
| is in addition to the anti-virus aspect. Many of them | | | | very good at getting many different kinds of |
| provide parental controls for the computer, as well as | | | | malware including Adware, which several other |
| anti-phishing and anti-spyware. Some even perform | | | | programs do not find. Since the program is not |
| computer diagnostics or track backups for you. This | | | | resident, you have to initiate the scan, which you |
| is good for folks who need and use these extra | | | | would do if you had any reason to believe that there |
| services. However, many folks do not use these | | | | was a virus on the machine. |
| extra services if they even know about them. | | | | 3. Super Anti Spyware. This program does run in the |
| There are several good anti-virus programs that are | | | | background all the time, but it generally does not |
| 100% Free for home users. My two current favorites | | | | interfere with your virus scanner. It is very good at |
| are AVG Free and Microsoft Security Essentials, but | | | | getting certain types of spyware that the other virus |
| there are other good free ones besides these. For | | | | checkers might miss. You can run manual scans as |
| those who are not using or needing the extra | | | | well. |
| services of a commercial package, the free ones are | | | | Now a machine needs to have a little bit of |
| good at the anti-virus that they do. That's great, you | | | | horsepower to run all of these programs on top of |
| say, but what about the holes mentioned before? | | | | what you would already do with the machine, but |
| Free packages will have them as well. | | | | assuming your machine is fairly recent, and has 1 GB |
| Certainly this is true, which is why you do want to | | | | or more of RAM, you could likely run all of these if |
| run more than one security software program. The | | | | you needed to. A machine so protected would be |
| trick is that the second program (or third or fourth) | | | | very difficult to infect. Just make sure the security |
| cannot be another resident anti-virus. So taking the | | | | gets on before the viruses have already taken |
| example of a machine that has AVG Free anti-virus | | | | control, or you may need a professional to clean the |
| on it, one could add the following things to make the | | | | machine for you. |