Your computer is indispensable in that it stores all your precious data and information, so just imagine your frustration at losing them if a virus infects your computer. Computer viruses can easily enter your computer via the internet and infect the programs and files on your computer, causing valuable data to be lost forever. If you do not want to face this nasty dilemma, it is crucial that you protect your computer, programs and data with good anti-virus software.

Antivirus software scans your computer to search for any computer virus, old and new. If it finds any virus, the antivirus software eliminates it from your system. Some antivirus software also has the capability of adding antivirus updates and fixes to your computer system that helps protect your computer from newer versions of viruses as well as from spreading them to other computers.

There is a wide range of sophisticated antivirus software available these days. However, the effectiveness of any antivirus software is measured by its ability to detect the ever-changing virus threats. Even as antivirus software improves, computer viruses are becoming even more virulent, with new sets of viruses released every other day. Your current antivirus software that sits on your computer often fails to recognize these new sets of viruses, so it is extremely important to keep your anti-virus software constantly updated to include protection against new lists of virus threats.

When the antivirus software detects a virus-infected file, the software can either repair the file, or remove it to prevent the viral code from spreading to other files in the system. Once a new virus is detected, the codes are sent to virus analysis centers. These centers then conduct a thorough analysis of the virus, and work out a string of programs to identify and protect against this newly discovered virus. The fix is then added into a database from where the users can download the updated version of the antivirus program.

Most of the advanced antivirus software follow four main methods of virus detection. These methods include: scanning, integrity checking, interception, and heuristic detection. Scanning and interception are the most commonly used methods for most of the popular anti-virus software. The other two procedures are used by some lesser- known antivirus packages. However, the scanning process used by major antivirus programs can only be effective when the virus is recognizable to the software. Scanning, however, is not an effective solution for dealing with new viruses. Thus the role of antivirus analysis centers becomes extremely important and significant in the ongoing fight against new virus threats.

Anti-virus programs are generally not effective in restoring data. Viruses are often successful in damaging the files, in which case the best protection is to always backup your files. In cases where the file has only been infected but not damaged, virus scanners will be able to restore it to its pre-infected form by deleting the viral codes from it. But antivirus programs are ineffective against viruses that damage system files. The only way to recover from such damage is by cleaning all the infected files and reinstalling them from backups.

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