Anti Virus software can help keep your personal computer free of damaging programs, worms, trojans, and other malicious software.

What is a Computer Virus?

A virus is a piece of code that is loaded into your computer system without your knowledge and runs a series of executions on your computer with the intent of doing some damage. Viruses are capable of duplicating themselves and spreading across networks and the internet. The effect of a computer virus can vary depending on what the intent of the program was designed by the person who developed the virus. All computer viruses are man made. Viruses are usually designed to run automatically and infect another computer program. Each time the infected program runs, the virus is also loaded into memory and allows it to perform its function(s).

How to Protect your Computer from Viruses

The best way to protect your computer from attacks by viruses, worms, trojans, and other types of attacks is to keep Anti-Virus software running on your computer. Anti-Virus software works to identify and eliminate (or quarantine) viruses on your system. The way this software performs this task of keeping your system free of viruses is by scanning your system for "known" viruses. The program uses a database of viruses so it knows how to identify them. This database is updated manually, so having anti-virus software that can download new updates to the virus definitions is critical. Not doing so will result in your virus definitions file becoming old and your system will be vulnerable to newly developed viruses.

List of Quality Anti-Virus Programs

There are many anti-virus programs available on the market today. Listed below are many anti-virus software programs which are considered to be top quality programs capable of keeping your system free of viruses.

• Norton Antivirus 2005 By Symantec.
• McAfee virusscan By McAfee Security.
• The Shield 2005 Pro By NextAisle.com.