How Do Anti-virus Software Tools Work?

By Author: Ivan Cuxeva
Total Articles: 782
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Viruses are a great threat to your computers. They can eat up all memory space and cause your system to crash. Viruses can multiply themselves and can also get transmitted through network connections. They can have catastrophic consequences once they get inside your system. The best way to tackle this nuisance is to be prepared beforehand. Make use of a good and reliable anti-virus software to safeguard your system against potential virus threats.

An anti-virus software is a set of programs that scans your hard disk for virus threats. It identifies, blocks and eliminates any virus that is found and thus protects your computer. What an anti-virus basically does is to looks for viruses that are familiar and match them with the definitions of the latest viruses found. There is a common database that is regularly upgraded with the latest viruses known and discovered. Your anti-virus matches the virus codes found on your PC to those on this database, ascertains and then eliminates these viruses. Your antivirus also identifies any infected or malfunctioning program or software by methods like port monitoring and data capturing.

If ...
... the stubborn virus does not get eliminated when the antivirus tries to remove it then the anti-virus isolates the virus in such a way that it cannot have access to any other program and therefore cannot harm the system anymore. If the virus still persists then the anti-virus has to remove the infected file to ensure the safety of the system. When you are using an anti-virus, make sure you check for virus updates on the Internet as frequently as possible preferably once a day.

You can get a good antivirus anywhere. It's very easy to download anti-virus software as it does not take up much of your computers memory space. Many websites offer anti-virus software for free. However you must be careful about where you want to download an anti-virus from. Go for only known and trusted websites and see whether the program that you are going for has good reviews or not.