This page is meant as a brief and basic introduction  to those little bugs that plague the enjoyment and usefulness of our respective computers.  If you already know know the difference between a virus and a worm you will not learn anything new here.  If you don't know and don't care (what differences does it make anyways?) but just want your machine to get better,  this page will hopefully help.  

Let it be known that I am a big Symantec fan.  I make no apologies for that.  Most of the links on this page will take you to their site. 

Do you have a virus?

The correct answer to this question is "maybe"  or "yes".  Even the most diligent computer user can't say "No" to this question.   We are talking about sneaky little things that can come off a floppy disk, are emailed to you or, ....(you really don't want to know how else  :-)   in less time than it takes you to hit your back button.  Two things to remember when you think you might (or know) you have a virus 

Last winter when you got hit with the flu did you call the brain surgeon for help?  The fact is most virus' are more annoying than anything.  Annoying to you and if you are lucky enough to have acquired a hot little number that likes to say hello to everyone in your mailbox, annoying to everyone else.  Experience has shown though, that you can have multiple virus' for long periods of time and never experience a crash.  I won't give away family secrets, but suffice it to say that I have seen cases of double digit virus' on more than one machine and they both still show up for work each day.  Give Microsoft some credit!  You bought a decent cow. 

Stop and think!

At this point I would be remiss if I didn't alert you to one particularly persistent virus called the  "Hoax Virus" .    It could easily be called that "Ghost Virus" as some good natured person millions of miles away has successfully managed to make you see something that is just not there.   This virus requires your little fingers to reach out and touch the world with havoc.

Identifying this virus is easy because it almost always - 

Being the pathetic little cretin it is, it will then  (dare) you to do 'something'  to stop it !  Where the police,  IBM and Microsoft have failed to contain it, it is now looking to little old you and your address book to save the world.   STOP!  THINK!  Don't even touch that keyboard!  There is a better way.  Learn how you can truly save the world by going here. 

 

Is it really there?

Is your machine suffering from years of neglect or is it really sick ?  This is a good question.  If you are actually still reading this page I suspect you have a combination of both.   Warning signs can include but are not limited to 

Identify it!

As with the Hoax Virus the trick to any virus defeat is to identify it. Who cares how it found you,  it did and now you need to know if it is chicken soup or ice cream that  will make it go away.   To know which cure will work you need to know if its name.  Your first stop (and with luck, your last) should be here to run a security check.  If necessary write down all the names the check gives you.  Now you know who errr...what you are dealing with.   Information is power and you just struck your first blow. 

Now give the 'names' one at a time  to the nice lady at the counter here and she will be able to tell you the life history and crimes of the little critters. Trust her.  She has the experience of years to tell you not only whether you need the soup vs. the cream, but keeps the recipe on hand for each and will gladly pass on her secret.

Prevent it! - why?

9 pounds of the cure!  It is true.  Consider that every time you get a virus it changes your registry.  Yeah, I know you don't know what a registry is but, think of it as the DNA to your computer (you do know what DNA is right???) .  Some people like to think of the registry as God, but I have never known God to crash so I'll stick with the DNA analogy. 

Virus' changes your registry.  Not tough to fix but ..when the second, third and fourth virus goes in they start competing for control.  Some are better than others at winning battles but you can bet they didn't win all the battles.  The current record I know of is 20 virus' on one computer.   Which part, of which virus, won which battle, is something for historians.  If you have had more than one virus at the same time you have one unique system that will never respond as expected again.

Of course I'm speaking from a tech point of view.  Your computer may operate fine for the next millennium after numerous virus removals so please, don't try to fix it if it is not broken!   We can bring it back to new (kind of) if you let us erase every trace you ever touched that keyboard but do a reality check first.  It is, after all, just a machine, right?

Prevent it! - how?

Anti Virus Protection!  A simple solution, and most people are very good about recognizing they need it.  The problem is that when the salesman helped you understand  what RAM is, and what an HD is, what your processor speed was, he didn't explain how Anti Virus works.  Sure, it came with the package (I like freebees too), but in all the discussion, he missed explaining that it is YOU that makes it all work. 

The Program +

You want to make soup?  You need a pot.  This is what you bought when you bought the anti virus program. It can make a great soup with the right ingredients (this one is pure copper with a nice even heat) but right now you still have just a pot.

The Patterns

Ah!  now you are talking!  The secret ingredient!  This is what makes a great Scotch Broth. 

Showing your computer "patterns" of known virus' lets it know what to guard the gate against.  Since these patterns show up daily and weekly, the onus (if you are truly wanting to be protected vs. plundered) is  to continually retrieve them and show them to your AntiVirus program so it understands. 

Some Anti Virus programs (that were basically lazy) need to be reminded to retrieve the patterns.  That is not the case so much anymore.  Younger and more robust programs will ask if they can get these patterns and they will pant worse than my dog for a Frisbee to do so.  Let them.  Face it, they are younger and they are faster (yeah....I know you have more insurance! ) but let them do the stupid  stuff.

A Screen Shot of my AV system looks like this.  Your dates should be current and you should have a backup disk (I don't because I backup to a second computer).  My AV also protects my EMAIL 

Finale

You need a program and need to updated patterns regularly for your AntiVirus to work.  When you buy a computer you have a year to download those patterns free. 

 After the year you DO NOT NEED to buy the program again.  YOU DO NEED to buy the pattern subscription but that is cheap as borscht ( under $10, even in Canada)

Even if you do everything right, this will not mean that you can not be infected with a virus.  It is you that tells your computer what to ignore.  Your dog will never behave as well.  

Set Up of the program is important, but at least you have a fighting chance.  

If you actually read all of this and still have a question send me an email.  I don't know it all  but,  I know how to make soup.