Whether you have learned your lesson from a past experience with a nasty
computer virus or have been pressing your luck by surfing the web and
downloading various files or opening those email messages sent to you by
people you don’t know without any real understanding of just how vulnerable
you really are each time you log onto your computer you now have the
opportunity to discover what steps you can take to avoid such an annoying
and many times destructive infestation.
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.
•Purchase and install a well respected antivirus software program and be
sure to set it up so that it automatically runs when the computer starts up
each time.
•Make sure to keep your antivirus software up to date by either using the
automatic update feature that many come with or make it a habit to manually
check at least once or twice a week for updates on your own.
•Set your antivirus program to scan for potential viruses each time you
open a word-processing document like the ones that get sent through email.
Viruses found in word-processing documents are called Macro Viruses.
•When purchasing software make sure to only buy from vendors that are
well known and from ones you trust.
•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.
•If using floppy disks to transfer data make sure to format them before
using them for the first time.
•Never use pirated software. This is both illegal and a very good way to
invite an unwanted computer virus.
•When downloading software from the internet do so 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.
•If you must download programs from the internet ALWAYS scan them for
viruses BEFORE opening them up to install on your computer.
•Probably the most important and neglected method of disaster recovery
are periodic backups of all important files found on your computer. Should a
virus happen to get through your lines of defense you may need to replace
the virus corrupted files with fresh ones that have been kept for such an
occasion.
Finally, it is not guaranteed that if you follow the above steps that you
will not be the victim of a computer virus, but you can sure bet that if
followed you will greatly reduce the chance of being an unsuspecting
recipient of such an unwanted program.
Dan Preston is the webmaster of a site called InfoHeaven Digital Books
and The Online Book Store where you can find useful and Fr'ee information
along with many how-to digital books that cover a large variety of
interesting topics.
http://infoheaven-digital-books.com and
http://online-book-store.net.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/ |
