How to Prevent a Computer Virus

Level of difficulty: Easy

A computer virus is one of the biggest enemies of a computer user, especially those users who use the Internet often. Prevention is always better than cure and knowing how to prevent a computer from obtaining virus may very likely save important files, documents, programs and applications from being infected and put to waste. Avid Internet users should all have basic knowledge as to how to prevent computer viruses from entering the system.

Materials Needed:
- Internet connection
- Security tools
- software
Step 1
If the computer is running on Windows Vista or Windows XP, then it should have a firewall installed into and activated on the system. To ensure that there is a firewall installed in it, go to Control Panel and click on the Security Center icon. If there is an installed firewall, make sure that the firewall is set on. You can click on Firewall settings on the bottom right of the Window to edit certain firewall preferences.
Step 2
Install security software to your system. There are a lot of security software applications available for download on the Internet. There are some free reliable anti-malware programs but there are also paid ones. Trust the more popular ones that have been in the market for a long time. Be careful in choosing security software as there are a lot of rogue security applications offered for free on the Internet. Check the software’s reliability and reputation before downloading.
Step 3
Make sure that the security software is set to 'automatically update its database'. New malware programs come out every day. This is why security programs need to be updated often. If a security program is not updated, its reliability is lessened for every day that it remains out-of-date.
Step 4
If the computer has a large memory and hard drive capacity, consider setting the computer to automatically download Operating System updates. These updates are provided by Microsoft. They contain patches to the Operating System’s programming errors and loopholes. These patches usually take up a lot of system memory and hard disk space. Go to the Control Panel and click the Security Center Icon. On the option below the Firewall, turn Automatic Updates on. You can click on Automatic Updates settings on the bottom right of the Window to tweak specific preferences.
Step 5
Finally, avoid downloading files and programs from questionable websites and emails. These files and programs may contain malware programs that may damage the system.


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