Windows Tools, Help & Guides

A colleague of mine recently asked me to have a look at his personal Notebook. He has a virus infection on the PC and doesn’t know how to get rid of it.

He dropped the Notebook off at my house after work one evening and I had a look. Immediately several screens popped-up at me screaming about all the infections on the machine. I found this strange as I didn’t know the program spewing out these warnings.

After a bit of research on Google I found that this was one of those programs enticing the user to download for free. Once installed, it produces false-positives so the user will be scared into purchasing it. I removed the offending program, and updated the perfectly good antivirus and firewall software on the machine, scanned the entire notebook to find no major threats.

All the user needs to do now is to purchase a new annual license and he is good to go.

My advice is to ensure you have one of the major anti-virus programs installed, preferably with a firewall built-in. It is quite easy to read-up on different antivirus software programs online by simply asking Google.

Just two sites where you can compare the top 10 antivirus software programs are;

All Internet Security and Internet Security Suite Review. Or, you can look at our top 5 list of free security software.

I would certainly read-up about different options and if possible test a few by taking the demo licenses. Some antivirus software is very resource-hungry and therefore kills the machines’ performance. You need to find one that offers good protection and still leaves the PC at a comfortable working speed. Also it is important that the user-interface is easy to follow and understand. User-support is also very important. The technical staff should be helpful and get any problem solved quickly.

A couple of years ago I threw out one of the major antivirus softwares which was dictated by our head-office, and replaced it with another lesser known product. I did extensive reading about the product and found very good reviews about it.

With the old antivirus I had at least one PC a week that were infected and the only way to get rid of the viruses was to format and reload. Updating and deep-scanning did nothing to remove the threats. With the new software, it’s been 2 years re-install free. Not a single PC had to be re-installed because of a virus infection. Updating all workstation on the network is a dream as it comes with an administration console and administration server which can be installed and run from any PC or Server.

Our Head office is now looking into changing nationwide.

Once you find one (at the office or at home) that has all the correct elements (Cleaning, Easy Interface, Good Support, Fits the budget, Smooth running, Seamless updating), get the licenses and stick to it!

Let us know in the comments which anti virus software you use or check out the results of our recent poll we ran asking you what anti virus software you us.

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