Virus Scan Information | Dallas Computer Repair

Virus scans are necessary to keep your computer operating as effeciently as possible. There are several free virus scans available from top vendors such as Kaspersky, McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro and Panda. Use a top vendor and do not use unknown antivirus vendors that may dupe users into downloading spyware, adware or trojans. Social engineering is used to make users think they are downloading programs to help them when in fact those programs may steal your computer from you and use your computer to send spam all over the world or deliver a multitude of ads to a user's machine.

Most users should set the antivirus program to download updates automatically. Users are usually given the choice to download automatically, daily or manually. If the manual update is selected, users should update the antivirus as soon as the machine is connected to the internet. Users can also set their antivirus programs to scan at different intervals or at a set time. Users should scan for viruses at least a few times per week. If a user keeps their machine on most of the time, then a scan during the night when a user is not using the computer would be best so the scan does not slow the machine when it is needed.

Most of the scanners have real-time protection meaning that they will examine downloads as they are in progress and will examine programs as they start and activity that is in progress on machines. These real-time protections can be disabled, however, it is recommended to keep them active so they can prevent worms from coming in over the internet. If a worm is detected users will be notified usually through a popup message from the antivirus stating it has just stopped suspicious activity.

Just connecting to the internet without proper protection could allow a worm in that could destroy data and programs. The risk is absolutely not worth allowing the antivirus to use some computer resources; this will not slow the computer too much. Most antivirus now have email scanners that will check your emails and attachments. Always use the scanner when checking emails.

These antivirus programs can scan live as you download files from the internet. Users can always double check and check any file or program by right-clicking and the drop down menu will have an option to scan the file or program. This is a fast scan as it only scans that particular file/program.

An independent tester of anti-virus programs is AV-Test.org