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It’s Amazing What You Find When You Actually Use Your Anti-Virus Program
By John F | March 26, 2008
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I use AVG Anti-Virus, there I said it. It works for me. You may disagree, but I’ve used it on and off for over 2 years now. I couldn’t quite get used to Avast and Anti-Vir doesn’t have email scanning, which I find very useful with AVG. Nothing against Avast or Anti-Vir, as they are both decent free for home use anti-virus programs.
I do keep the virus definitions updated, well AVG does that by itself. It scans my emails coming in and going out, it keeps my computer protected and ticking over nicely, or so I thought.
I have a bit naughty of late, and have ignored the scheduled scan for the past 5 weeks. I should run the scan when I’m not using the computer, but I cannot find a time when I’m not using the computer, except when I’m asleep. I don’t leave the computer on when I’m asleep [eco-warrior!].
When the scan runs whilst I’m using the computer, the computer is invariably slowed down as AVG scans each file on my computer [which is quite a few files, nearly 500GB of hard disk space]. So I kept putting it off the scan recently. Bad decision.
I actually let AVG run a full scan, whilst making dinner [yes, I can find time when I need to]. So trusty AVG, uninterrupted from my impatience found one virus. It may have been the behemoth of all viruses, it may have been a virus that may have not done much damage. I don’t know the name of the virus as it got dealt with as a virus should, kicked into computer oblivion.
So, the valuable lesson I learnt was, make sure you schedule your anti-virus program to scan at least once per month, and let it do its job. Simple, but ultimately effective.
Topics: Computer Security Usefulness |