The Best Anti Virus Software
What Should it do?

There are a lot of different Anti-virus products on the market these days.

It can all be such a pain in the you know what find an Antivirus package that does everything you want,

They all preach the same thing, but do they do the same thing?

All good anti virus software packages must have the following



Have Frequent Updates
Instant Scans
Be able to Scan Incoming and Outgoing emails
Scheduled scans
Scan compressed files

Do its job and leave you alone to get on with your work
Actually clean a virus rather than just notifying that its found one
Be user Friendly
Can be enabled or disabled by yourself easily
Be compatible with other software such as firewall and antispyware programs
Notify and make you aware of the latest virus threats

Have frequent updates
How many viruses are there around now? About 500,000 give or take. Did you also know there are on average 10 new viruses or strains of a current virus entering the Internet every day.

What happens if your Anti-virus software manufacturer only updates their software once a week and not in accordance with new viruses.

Well your computer gets infected and depending on the payload or destructive capabilities of the virus, anything could happen to your computer.

This means that, not just frequent updates, but flexible frequent updates are vital, so if a new virus comes along a protection patch is not very far behind.

Instant Scans
Instant Scans are a must, if you have shared files with a computer that has a virus or if you think your computer has a virus for some other reason, its good to be able to run an instant scan, just to put your mind at rest.

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Be able to Scan Incoming and Outgoing emails
To be fair most Anti-virus programs already do this, but what happens if your Anti-virus software keeps stopping you sending out e-mails ?

I had this exact problem with Norton Anti-virus, in the end I had to disable the outgoing e-mail scan.

So your chosen anti-virus software must be able to scan outgoing emails and tell if a virus is sending to people, without causing you problems sending.

Scheduled scans
Scheduled scans can be run at a time convenient to you, I always set mine to run about 10.30 in the morning, as I know I will be away from my desk at this time. I have noticed some Antivirus software has a default scan that runs at about 2am.

To me this would not be a lot of good, I always shut my pc down at the end of the evening.  computer adviser best anti virus software article

Scan compressed files
Can it scan compressed files? When I say compressed files ,
I dont just mean Zip files, but how about Cabs (which are windows compressed files) and self extracting compressed files, this is important, otherwise you could have a virus just sitting on your computer.computer adviser best anti virus software article

Do its job and leave you alone to get on with your work
Ever had Anti-virus software that keeps asking you things, it can be like a demanding child, first it tells you about a new virus.

Then it asks you to update, then it asks you to reboot and heaven forbid if you dont when its updated itself, now its no longer running until you reboot and its keeps reminding you.

So really you want to install the Antivirus software, and let it get on with its job, this is what you have paid it to do after all.  computer adviser best anti virus software article

Actually clean a virus rather than just notifying that its found one
Theres nothing worse than an Anti-virus package that tells you about a Virus and then cannot clean it, then it will keep telling you this and not allow you to do anything else.

As soon as you click to get rid of the dialogue box, it pops back up again and again, where do you go from here?  

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If this has happened or is happening to you, please read our Computer virus section, where we advise on other ways to remove a virus

Be user Friendly
User friendliness makes people confident when using their anti-virus software, if its too complicated  and you dont learn how to use it.

Then how do you know its doing its job or if you want to scan a files or check if there are any updates available how do you do this?

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Can be enabled or disabled by yourself easily
Can it be enabled or disabled easily by yourself? What happens if you cannot receive an email from a trusted source because your Antivirus software keeps blocking it?

Be compatible with other software such as firewall and antispyware programs
Sometimes there is a very fine line between spyware and viruses , and sometimes antispyware software and antivirus software can overlap giving compatibility issues, so make sure your anti-virus , antispyware and firewall software are all compatible.

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Notify and make you aware of the latest virus threats
Some antivirus packages notify you of new viruses via a small popup or email, every now and then this is a great thing, its just lets you know that your computer is protected against the latest viruses and even the computer virus hoax ,

But even notifying you of the same virus too often can be quite annoying though.
Ok so now you know what to look for when you are looking for the best anti virus software, forget about the bells and whistles.

Unless it really is something you can see a big benefit in, all you need is a good stable intelligent anti-virus solution, which complies with the points above.

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computer adviser best anti virus software article