Internet provider, there is a very serious and complex question: which antivirus should I choose? We will try to find the answer in this article, explaining why an antivirus is needed, how to select it and what is necessary for its reliable protection.
Why the antivirus
is needed For sure, most of you have heard of such a concept as "computer viruses".Computer viruses are malicious code or a kind of computer programs that is aimed at harming a user's computer, stealing or deleting his information, or remotely controlling a computer for personal gain. Thus, any of the listed targets of the virus - cause significant damage to the computer and paralyze its work.
Than the viruses
The Trojan is a known type of malicious virus programs. Trojans are usually masked by harmless programs to provoke a user to run them. The ultimate goal of the Trojan program is to harm the user's computer, both for selfish and selfless purposes. There are such "Trojans", the purpose of which is to erase the information on the computer hard drive, that is, all your data: music, documents, movies, photos - all this will be deleted and it will be almost impossible to restore them. Another kind of "Trojans" is stealing passwords stored on the computer in various programs, most often stealing passwords from browsers, so if this happens, you will lose access to your email, social networks and other accounts. Well, the last common type of Trojans - which block the computer to get money for unlocking. In other words, you turn on the computer and you have a lock window, with the requirement to transfer a certain amount of money to unlock the computer.
In addition, there are many more types of malicious objects that harm the computer, but we will not elaborate on them in detail, since they are not so common. The main thing is that you understand that viruses are very dangerous and your "machine" needs to be secured.
What other functions are performed by
Antiviruses In addition to protecting your computer from viruses and Trojans, the antivirus can also monitor the sites you visit, in the first place block those resources that are capable of damaging your computer, simply those sites on which there are viruses. In addition, antiviruses can block ads on sites, as well as pop-up banners, which is really very useful.
One can not fail to note such an additional feature, in some anti-viruses, as "Parental Control".This function is designed to protect children from visiting unwanted resources on the Internet.
How the computer becomes infected with the
virus The virus program can be infected only from the outside, that is, the virus in the computer itself can not appear. There are two ways of infecting a computer with viruses: via the Internet or via removable media. Through the Internet, your computer can become infected with a virus when downloading any files or when visiting malicious sites. As for removable media, an example of such carriers are flash drives or CD / DVD drives, when they were written on an infected computer and by copying or launching the virus moved to your computer. Antivirus program in both these cases protects your computer from getting viruses from the outside.
How to choose the antivirus program
To date, there is a large number of antiviruses, and of course, a consensus on what kind of antivirus is better - no. This happens for a number of reasons: unsatisfactory protection of anti-virus programs, problems in the work of the antivirus itself, or the high cost of a license. Therefore, which one to choose the antivirus - it's up to you. We, in turn, will give you the criteria for choosing an antivirus program and list the most popular ones that are worthy of your attention.
Which features should include the
antivirus Let's look at the antivirus functions that are necessary for reliable protection of the computer, in order of importance:
Antivirus Monitor The antivirus monitor monitors the files and folders with which you are working, to check for viruses.
A scanner is a function that scans a hard disk and RAM for viruses. A very useful feature to check suspicious and potentially dangerous files on your computer, especially useful is a scanner for checking removable media.
- Self-defense of the antivirus
The self-defense function of the antivirus is aimed at ensuring that the antivirus can protect itself from the effects of viruses. There are viruses that try to disable some of the functions of the antivirus, and to prevent its work in general, so that it does not interfere with the spread of viruses throughout the computer, that is why the self-protection function is needed.
- Monitoring of program activity
This function of the antivirus is aimed at controlling the operation of programs. In the event that the program is infected with a virus, it will begin to make changes to its operation, which should immediately detect this antivirus control.
- Network control and web antivirus
These antivirus components provide security for the Internet. Network monitoring monitors network activity, and the Web antivirus checks HTTP traffic by blocking script-based scripts hosted on websites.
anti-virus database Very important for reliable protection of the antivirus is the ability to constantly update the anti-virus database. Antivirus databases are a kind of "knowledge" about viruses and their features, which the antivirus uses to detect and prevent viruses. In view of the fact that new viruses appear almost every day, antivirus developers, when a new virus is discovered, must train their products, which are installed by users, knowledge of their detection and elimination. Thus, if you want your antivirus to protect your computer not only from known old viruses, but from new ones, updates should be regular.
- Low resource consumption of
One of the problems of many antivirus programs is a large resource consumption. When choosing antivirus software, try to choose a product that will not heavily burden the system, otherwise it will be very uncomfortable to work with such a computer or laptop.
Reputation and popularity
Reputation and popularity of antivirus is a very important factor that must be taken into account when choosing an antivirus program. The more popular the antivirus, the correspondingly and more users use it, and so, it is unlikely that a large number of people will use an unreliable antivirus.
Paid or free
Each of us understands that paid products always have better quality than free. Think: in order for the antivirus to protect reliably, you need a staff that will constantly collect information about new viruses and malicious codes from the Internet, and work on their neutralization. Then, the knowledge base data must be generated in the updates and uploaded to the server, so that the client programs are updated - and this should be permanent. In addition, it is necessary to develop new versions and functions of the antivirus. What conclusion can be drawn from this? To create and support an anti-virus requires a whole staff and full employment, and so to organize everything, the end product must cover all costs for this activity. Well, who will agree to work for free? And if suddenly and so, then the quality of such an antivirus will be appropriate.
The vast majority of companies and companies, as well as ordinary users, use paid antivirus software, but is this not an indicator!? Therefore, we recommend giving preference to a paid antivirus program.
You can purchase a license for an antivirus in a computer store, on an official antivirus site or in an online store.
How to install the antivirus
What kind of anti-virus program to install on a computer or laptop is up to you, since this should be an exclusively subjective opinion of each user. Next, we list the most popular antivirus programs that exist today, briefly describing their advantages and disadvantages.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus
Perhaps the most popular antivirus to date, which is created and produced in Russia. This antivirus program has several versions, but the most popular are Kaspersky Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security. The difference between these two products, from each other, lies in the fact that Kaspersky Internet Security, in addition to anti-virus protection which includes Kaspersky Anti-Virus, has Internet protection, which is very important for safe work on the World Wide Web.
The advantages of this anti-virus program include a high degree of computer protection, a wide range of functions and flexible settings. The disadvantages of Kaspersky can be attributed to the high cost of the license and excessive control of the program in some aspects.
The price of the license for 1 year for Kaspersky Anti-Virus is 1200 rubles, and for Kaspersky Internet Security 1600 rubles.
WEB
The second most popular antivirus in Russia - Dr. Web. Dr. Web also has two versions: a simple antivirus - Antivirus Dr. Web and the version of the antivirus + protection for the Internet. Web Security Space.
Unfortunately, the antivirus Dr. Web slightly loses against the backdrop of Kaspersky, both in terms of the number of functions and the protection against viruses. Nevertheless, Dr. Web use a large number of users who are fully satisfied with his work, and this is a very important indicator.
Price for one year: Antivirus Dr. Web - 990 rubles, Dr. Sc. Web Security Space - 1290 rubles. As you can see, Dr. Web makes more profitable offers to users.
Avast! Free Antivirus
Free Czech anti-virus, which is very popular among users as an excellent option for free antivirus. If you do not know which free antivirus to choose, then Avast!the most optimal antivirus for these tasks. In addition, this antivirus also has paid versions, but we will not focus on them. The advantages of this antivirus can be identified as its free version.
NOD32
Well-known Slovak antivirus, released since 1987.NOD32 is positioned as a sufficiently reliable antivirus, consuming a small amount of system resources and having a high speed of anti-virus scanning. On functions ESET NOD32 Smart Security does not lag behind its paid counterparts and includes antivirus and Internet protection.
The price of ESET NOD32 Smart Security license for one year is about 1267 rubles, which in fact does not differ from the prices of analogs.
Which antivirus is better than
It's hard to answer the question about which antivirus is better. Each of them has both advantages and disadvantages. In addition, frankly, 100% reliable antivirus is not, any of them can miss the virus, but someone has this probability is high, and someone is reduced to a minimum. Also, the work of the antivirus itself and its new versions may cause criticism, we talked about this a little higher, in view of the consumption of a large number of system resources and other shortcomings.
Antivirus for gadgets
Due to the wide distribution of such gadgets as a smartphone and tablet, which by functions are in no way inferior to the computer, hackers and other intruders, viruses were developed for these devices. It is worth noting that most modern mobile operating systems are subject to viruses. You'll probably ask, does antivirus matter for Android?- An antivirus solution is required for the following mobile operating systems: Android, Windows Mobile( Phone), Symbian and BlackBerry.
Therefore, to answer the question whether you need an antivirus for a tablet, you need to know its operating system( platform).If you have one of the platforms listed above, we recommend installing the antivirus in this case. The best antivirus programs for platforms that can be exposed to viruses are the Kaspersky Lab product - Kaspersky Mobile Security and the Dr. Web - Dr. Web OEM. Mobile.
Now, with regard to issues related to Apple's devices. For devices that are under the iOS operating system, anti-virus programs are not needed, since there is simply no virus for it. Therefore, if you are interested in the question: do you need an antivirus for the iPad, the answer is unambiguous - no. The same goes for the answer to the question: whether you need an antivirus for the iPhone - it is also not needed.
Take care of your information!
Before each user, after installing the operating system or by connecting to
