Filed under: PC Tools
what is the difference between spyware protection and anti virus protection?
April 6, 2011
3 thoughts on “what is the difference between spyware protection and anti virus protection?”
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Clean Registry and Optimize PC
I highly reccomend AVG for virus protection because it works great as long as you keep it up to date and scan your computer at least once a week.
There is a difference, so you do need both.
Virus can infected your whole comptuer and then can spread itself from another comptuer through e-mail, instant message, CD/DVD, flash drives and so on.
Spyware/adware, is infected software that installs itself onto your computer. Some software that spyware is most known for is fake virus protection programs. If you can infected bad enough this can open doors to all sorts of other infections and worms. Some infections can even prevent your protection software that is already installed from working.
These are the two programs I have used for the last few years. Any computer I have worked on I installed these programs and as long as your a safe user and only go to trusted site. You’ll be just fine.
Virus protection
http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-free-antivirus
Spyware removal program
http://malwarebytes.org/
Those are 2 different type of malware. Most anti virus programs will protect you from both of them. If you are interested, here is a description of the various kinds of malware – http://goo.gl/uzk38
The best free anti virus/spyware software for a Windows computer is Microsoft Security Essentials. It was built by Microsoft for Microsoft computers. It is updated daily and runs quietly in the background. It doesn’t use much bandwidth and has been proven to be very reliable and secure.
There isn’t really anything that will protect you from an email virus. The best way to protect yourself is not to open an email or attachment that you don’t recognize. First contact the person who you think sent the email or attachment and ask if they indeed did sent it. When you are 100% sure it’s safe, then open it.
Microsoft includes a malware removal tool on every Windows computer. You can use it after malware has entered your computer. Enter MRT in your search or RUN box and open the program (press ENTER or OK). Start it by clicking NEXT at the bottom of the page. Follow the prompts to remove the virus if there.
When making money or other important transactions over the internet, check the URL of the website you are connected to. A https is more secure than just http. Hope that helps.
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