Virus

Tips to maintain a virus free computer

Is your computer running slower than it should be? Do you often get mysterious error messages? Are you not able to run certain programs? If so, then there is a chance that your computer is infected by a virus. This is one of the major problem faced by almost all users across the globe. There are many kinds of viruses, worms and trojan that may infect and harm your computer. Some are harmless, but, they do have the capacity to do any number of nasty things including erasing all data from your computer and multiplying its own copies. However there are many ways by which you can keep these viruses and worms away from your PC. Here are 12 ways to maintain a virus free computer.

1. Email is one of the most common way by which your computer can be infected by a virus. Its always recommended to stay away from SPAM. Best way is to open only emails that you receive from trusted sources such as those which come from your contact list. Best way to reduce spam is by using email filters in your email. If you are using your own private email host (other than yahoo, hotmail, gmail,etc.) then it is highly recommended that you use a good anti-spam software. And finally at last NEVER EVER click on any links that comes from untrusted sources.

2. Always be careful about using MS outlook. MS outlook is more susceptible to worms than other email programs,unless you have efficient Anti-Virus programs running. Use Pegasus or Thunderbird (by Mozilla), or a web-based program such as hotmail or gmail (In Firefox). Its better that you uninstall MS outlook from your computer.

3. USB thumb/pen drives/flash drives is another common way by which a virus can spread rapidly. Its always a better idea to perform a virus scan before copying any data into your computer. You should NEVER double-click a pen drive to open it. Instead you can right click on it and select the option "explore".This is a safe way to open a pen drive. Another way to safeguard computer is by using Usb Disk Security in your computer, it can scan for viruses and also turn off autorun of usb drives.

4. As we all know, Internet contributes as the major source of all the malicious programs including viruses, worms, trojans,malwares, etc. In fact Internet contributes up to 80% of virus infections. So here are the tips to use safe surfing in order to cop away virus spreading from internet.

• Never click on pop-up windows that announce a sudden disaster in your city or announce that you've won an hourly prize. They are the ways to mislead Internet users and you should never trust them.

• You can also use a pop-up blocker to automatically block those pop-ups.

• Use Mozilla firefox as browser your default, as it has various add-ons that may help you.

5. Most of us use search engines like Google to find what we are looking for. It is quite obvious for a malicious website to get listed in the search results. So to avoid visiting those untrusted malicious websites, you can download and install the AVG LinkScanner which is a freeware. This tool can become very handy and will help you to stay away from malicious websites.