How Anti-virus protects your computer while
you are on the Internet
The internet is the breeding ground for most viruses. Your system is
susceptible to virus attacks when you are browsing. This is where your
Anti-virus software comes in.
- The anti-virus scans all your e-mails and sends out an alert every
time it detects a virus before you download or save any files onto your
computer. Watch out for spam mail. Some of them might have a virus on
them. It is always advisable to have your anti-virus re-scan any message
you think might contain a virus.
- If you are using e-mail softwares like Outlook Express, most anti-virus
softwares tend to scan even the outbound mail before it gets sent. If
you use a web-based e-mail program, your ISP tends to scan your outbound
mail automatically.
Most anti-virus software tend to detect a virus and remove it immediately.
But sometimes if your anti-virus software detects a virus but is not able
to fix it, it will remove the infected file either by deleting it or by
placing it in quarantine so that the virus present in it does not hurt
your system. Quarantine is nothing but a subdirectory created by your
anti-virus to park your infected file out of contact from the rest of
your system.
Sometimes, only when you run a scan through you system you realize that
you have a virus which has managed to sneak past your anti-virus software.
You can then make a note of the name of the virus and run a search on
your anti-virus software’s website. Look for specific activity of
the virus and see how you can remove it. Your anti-virus software’s
website might even suggest a specific tool to remove that particular virus.
The website may also have information on the damage the virus is known
to cause and what you need to do for damage control.
Damage Control:
- Depending on the virus you may have to download and run repair programs
as suggested by your anti-virus software website.
- Some viruses tend to uninstall or remove certain files from your Operating
System. Your anti-virus software website might suggest where to look
for these files and re-install them.
- Some viruses affect certain software. You may have to re-install the
software if it is damaged beyond repair.
Remember: Keep all the documentation that comes
with your software like the license key number safe. You never know when
you might need it again.
- If you have picked up a boot sector virus and are unable to boot your
system, you may have to boot using the anti-virus software’s rescue
disk, created while installing the anti-virus software.
- If your anti-virus has removed any file infected by a virus it has
not been able to fix, you can restore your file only from a back-up
if you have any.
- If the virus has affected the system’s Registry then you may
have to manually remove a registry key to fix your problem. The registry
is a database of sorts which has all the configuration settings of your
Operating System and other programs installed on your system. It is
recommended to use professional help to do this since changes to your
registry are of a highly sensitive nature and could cause your system
to crash.
- In some extreme cases the virus might have wrecked the Operating System
itself. Then you have no other choice but to re-install the OS.
Remember: You could lose all your data when you Re-install
your OS.
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