How important is anti-virus/virus protection program?

12 thoughts on “How important is anti-virus/virus protection program?”

1. diagit2007 says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   Having an anti-virus program protecting your computer is like having a flu shot for the Winter season. It does not mean that your computer will never get infested by a virus just like you will not get the flu by taking the flu shot. There are no known anti-virus programs that can claim to stop or prevent infection. from all viruses, it is just not possible for them to keep up with the new ones that come out everyday.

   Anti-virus programs don’t make computers run better or faster their purpose is to stop or prevent your system from getting infected from known viruses and some are now able to prevent unknown viruses.

   There are all kinds of viruses roaming the World Wide Web and ready to attack an unprotected computer. Some are not considered very dangerous and others can render your computer to a piece of unusable hardware..

   Yes, viruses can physically destroy your computer and you would need to replace the whole unit. Unless you have money to throw away you’d better get a virus protection program for your computer. You’ve been warned.

2. br_foot says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   questions for you…are you conected to the internet?? do you have a floppy drive??

   if yes to either of them then ask yourself……how inportant is shampoo and water if you want to get your hair clean and you have your answer…really is simple………………………………………

   without one your chances are 100% that you will become infected with a virus just like your hair will stay dirty 🙂

3. bambamitsdead says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   There are two ways of viewing this…

   1) If you are on an unprotected connection to the internet (ie you’re not on a corporate network or don;t have a personal firewall on your PC) then it’s not aquestion of IF, it’s a question of WHEN your PC gets compromised. In my experience it can take less than 5 minutes connected to the internet for a completely unprotected PC to get a virus. My firewall reports (at times) several probes a minute trying to find an unprotected PC to attack. Some of these are not viruses, they are other exploits but in effect they compromise your PC just about as well as a virus.

   So, get yourself a virus killer and a spamware killer ASAP. AVG is free and seems to work

   2) If you have a well configured firewall (the one in XP is not well configured by default… the one in Vista is better but still not secure enough) and use common sense in opening emails and *never* surf to suspect web pages then you probably can survive without an antivirus… for ever. I ran a PC like this for several years and it always passed a virus scan as clean.

   But as you increasingly can’t recognise an infected website that will try to exploit you rbrowser weaknesses to load something nasty onto your PC you really should get an antivirus.

   And you should either configure your Windows firewall to give the minimum exposure of your PC or turn it off and replace it with an easier to manage one like ZoneAlarm or Tiny or Agnitum Outpost or any number of other free or cheap firewalls.

   Oh, there is a third solution… Use Linux not Windows and install the firewall component and turn it on to maximum paranoia mode. And you should get an AV software for Linux too!

4. acklan says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   Provided your computer has the resources (512mb or RAM for XP) you should run a software firewall (only one), a antivirus (only one), and as many antispyware as your system can support.

   If I may recommend what I run on all of my computers.
   AVG 7.5 Free
   SyGate 5.6 firewall
   Spybot S&D
   Spyware Guard
   Spyware Blaster
   You can find links to all of them and more at..
   http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic3616.html

5. Andy says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   An anti-virus is important for a computer. The anti-virus program is the computer’s immune system and it blocks many things that might harm your computer. The chances of getting a virus is almost 100%. Whenever you’re on the internet or a program that runs on the internet/ games, virus can flow in anytime. Viruses make your computer slow, mess up the information, delete random things, and might also just shutdown the system. Without an anti-virus program, you might not know when a hacker have entered your computer.

6. yvanlockow says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   If your computer is connected to a network and nowadays they all are you should probably get one. The more sites you browse, the more information passes through your machine thus the chances some of the stuff to be virus/spyware is pretty hight.
   However the anti-virus more or less slows down your computer and this is one of the reasons I don’t want to have one installed.
   So in my case I have a router with firewall which is my gateway to the network. I don’t have any anti-virus programs installed on the PC. However, periodically I do install a free anti-virus let it scan the PC, fix the problems if any and then I delete it so it doesn’t scan and do stuff all the time.
   Option for such a program is AVG. You can easily google it up, it’s free and every time I install it I download the latest version so that everything is up to date.
   In the same way I also use AVG Spyware and SpyBot Search&Destroy for spyware since it’s always good to run more than one program on your PC. You’ll be amazed that they’ll find different things each 😉

7. annetteaisgroup says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   Your chances will become higher if you don’t have one. There are some free downloads out there, and I will attach the link for you. But the best one is called Kaspersky. I use that one, and I have many years, 8, in the field. You can download it for 30 days for free, then buy it cheep on eBay. :o)

8. Udin says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   yes , very very (10x) important . in this time the risk of a pc getting a virus is REALLY high . they can came from mostly internet and removable media (cd/dvd pendrive etc) . just get one like AVG , Kaspersky Mcafee , bitdefender , panda , nod32 or etc . if u don’t have these you need to keep formatting and repairing ur pc . and don’t forget about antispywares and antispams!!

9. Aliz says:

   January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

   You NEED one to prevent a virus from the possibly of getting one that will kill your hard drive.
   I use the free AVG one which was put it in my computer by my son who works repairing computers.

10. ali says:

    January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    very it will protect your computer so you can go on yahoo.com all the time without interruptions lol anyway it is very helpful i have it and it halps the computer work quicker too

11. BarcaMagic says:

    January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    yeah you should deff, get one

12. danuitti says:

    January 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    If you have a Windows Computer, and you are ON the internet, you MUST HAVE an Anti-virus program. PERIOD. Otherwise, it won’t be long that you have a Virus.

    Try the free version of AVG Anti-virus from http://www.download.com

    Good luck and Happy Computing!

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