Secure Computing: Up-To-Date Anti-Virus

What is the number one reason why most people with virus prevention programs installed on their computer become infected? The answer is quite simple. The virus prevention software isn’t kept up-to-date.

Anti-virus software is only as good as its virus definition database and its detection software. Commercial anti-virus vendors only provide adequate updates to the virus definition and the detection software as long as the customer has paid for the updates. Today, most vendors provide 1 year of updates with the purchase of their products and many consumers choose not to renew update subscriptions after the initial period. Unfortunately, by not extending subscriptions consumers leave their computers at risk of infection.

Fortunately, free anti-virus vendors have been getting better and better reviews giving consumers another solution. There are three free anti-virus solutions that I would recommend: AntiVir Personal, Avast Home Edition, and AVG Free. These all have comparable features, free updates, and you can checkout http://www.av-comparatives.org/ for comparisons of their effectiveness against malicious code.