I have just realised that despite having contributed to this blog for over six months I have never discussed anything to do with protecting yourself against computer viruses. This of course is an extremely important subject as these days virus protection needs to be considered as an absolutely vital part of your computing setup. It is certainly something for which it would extremely inadvisable to go without unless you never ever connected your computer to the Internet. Even then the chance of infection delivered through the use of USB sticks or the transfer of digital documents really still would need to be protected against.

Protect yourself

There are a number of ways to ensure you are protected against virus attacks, and the one you choose will depend largely on your current situation. If you have recently bought a laptop for instance, with Windows Vista or XP installed you have the option of opting for Microsoft’s OneCare service. Another option would be to choose something like Norton’s Antivirus 2008. Often a newly purchased PC will have 90 day trials of these packages already installed and after the trial period you will be prompted to purchase an time extension online. These are both subscription based services for which the initial purchase price will include access to regular updates of the software virus database for a limited time period, usually 12 months, after which you have to renew again.

If you have an older laptop and you want to change or upgrade your present virus protection or you presently do not use any virus checking (Hint: buy one the above packages as soon as possible) you can purchase either Norton Antivirus and Microsoft OneCare or a similar package.

Update the database

However you purchase your virus protection software it is important to keep the virus database constantly updated. This is so that the application will be able to recognise and protect your computer from any new viruses that might appear on the scene. You should set up your application to check for new updates on a daily basis.

Do you have a preferred anti virus product?