Believe it or not, there was a time when viruses weren’t all that big of a deal. The first known computer viruses were, really, little more than harmless practical jokes, usually created by a high school student with a little too much time on his hands, and distributed via floppy disk. These viruses would install themselves, infect any disk going in or out of the system, and screw around with your computer in generally silly ways. One might display part of a poem, while another might show some ASCII art displaying an image. This is, of course, back when computers largely were used as a hobby, and not as they are today. So of course, the people making viruses were just people with a hobby, too.
So… yeah, things have certainly changed since then. Thirty years ago, there wasn’t a lot of money to be made in viruses, because nobody was using their computer to shop online, or do their taxes. Nobody was using credit card and Paypal PIN numbers yet. Today, your computer has so much personal information on it, it’s easy to see why it’s such a tempting target for criminals. Viruses, today, are all about taking money. Some people are still making viruses as jokes, but 99% of them are just about getting the virus maker paid somehow.
This, of course, is exactly why you have so many options for fighting viruses these days. It’s become a pretty hot market, really. The downside is that, the harder the antivirus software designers are working, the harder the virus makers are working. Viruses are released, and once discovered, they’re added to the database. Once added to the database, they’re rendered harmless by any up to date virus scanner. So, virus makers have to come up with something new and sneaker to get around the current virus scanner database, forcing the virus scanner company to update again, and so on and on.
Luckily, one of your options is downloading a free virus scanner. If you don’t have a scanner on your computer yet, you need one, right this second. So go ahead and look up Avira AntiVir. They update their database every day, it’s free, and it’s easy to use.
To be completely honest, though, you’re not going to get top notch virus protection without spending a dollar or two, but free virus scanners are a great way to tide you over until you can get ahold of something a little more potent.
