Anti-virus…
Over to the right side of The Digitante blog you may have seen the link to my new Facebook page. If not, you may be reading this on a feed reader like Google Reader. If so, click through to the blog and check it out.
I got a request over there for information on anti-virus (AV) software for the internet. This is a topic near and dear to my heart because I struggle with how to approach it every day.
On one hand, getting a virus on your computer is very disruptive as it slows your computer down and in extreme cases, can steal your passwords to sites like your bank and your email.
On the other hand, an AV program is just one more program running on your computer, eating up memory, and slowing down on the other things you have going on.
While I’m not going to tell you exactly what to do, I will cover the basics to helping you make an informed decision.
How much should I spend?
Nothing. Plain and simple, there are plenty of free options out there so that paying for McAfee or Norton should not even be an option. Unfortunately, there seems to be a connotation that in order to be good, something must be expensive. In this case, McAfee and Norton are two of the bloatiest (yes, I just made that word up) and costliest pieces of software out there. Not only do you have to buy them, you have to continue to pay year after year. If you search the internet, you will also find stories of people having more trouble removing them than removing the viruses themselves.
Downloadable Software
The AV program I am most familiar with and have used successfully for years is Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft Security Essentials is extremely lightweight, running in the background, updating regularly, and providing very solid protection. It certainly won’t bog down you system like a number of other AV programs do.
Running bare
Prior to installing Panda Cloud on the media center, I actually didn’t have any AV running. This is dangerous, but for what I use that computer for, I was very careful about the sites I visited and what email I opened. Common sense will get you a long way, but it takes time and patience to get to the point of being able to go without AV. However, I wouldn’t recommend it in any case.
But I have Linux/Mac! I don’t need AV!
Wrong. Commonly you will hear people who have OS X or Ubuntu (or other Linux variant) state that they don’t need AV protection because they can’t get viruses. While Macs and Linux are fairly protected just by the nature of their programming, that doesn’t mean they can’t pass the virus on to others. If I have a Linux computer, I might get an email with a hilarious video of a cat chasing its tail and then puking, so I then pass that video on to my Windows using friends. If that hilarious video happens to have a virus planted inside of it, I’ve just infected my friend’s computer. To combat this, I recommend Mac and Linux users get ClamAV (Linux) or ClamXAV (Mac). It scans emails coming to you so you don’t pass on a bad virus to your Windows friends.
I have a virus! What do I do?
This is a more difficult question. Most viruses are “quarantined” by the AV program so they stop causing damage. If you find a file you need in the quarantine, you can release it so it will continue to work. Anything in the quarantine can be nuked so it no longer hurts your computer.
Occasionally, you will run across a virus that the scanner can’t get rid of. That is when it is time to call or email The Digitante by heading over to the About page. You can also feel free to contact me if you already scanned for viruses and you computer is still slow to respond. There may be other problems that can be taken care of to speed things up.
Email Subscription
Visit Amazon
Blogged.com
