How to finally give viruses the heave-ho!
Source: ZDNet
Merely owning antivirus software is not enough to protect your PC from infection. The software requires a certain amount of care and feeding beyond the initial purchase. Fortunately, a few minutes of prevention can prevent hours of frustration during a real attack.
Installing antivirus software on your PC is the first step to safeguarding yourself from all the viruses out there. A good firewall can also help, by alerting you to some of the viruses, worms, and Trojan horses active on the Internet. Probably the best approach is to use both an antivirus program and a firewall. Today, I'll help you get the most out of your antivirus software, then in next week's column I'll discuss consumer-grade firewalls.
When you purchase antivirus software, either in the store or online, it usually comes with a set of virus signatures--unique code that distinguishes one virus from another--that immediately go out of date. New viruses are created and discovered almost every day. That's why you should download the most recent signature files when you install your antivirus program (most products do this automatically).
