Choosing the right Antivirus Software
Antivirus software will scan the computer to search for any
computer virus, old and new. If it finds any virus, the
antivirus software eliminates it from your system. Some
antivirus software also has the capability of adding antivirus
updates and fixes to your computer system that helps protect
your computer from newer versions of viruses as well as from
spreading them to other computers.
There is a wide range of sophisticated antivirus software
available these days. However, the effectiveness of any
antivirus software is measured by its ability to detect the
ever-changing virus threats. Even as antivirus software
improves, computer viruses are becoming even more virulent, with
new sets of viruses released every other day. Your current
antivirus software that sits on your computer often fails to
recognize these new sets of viruses, so it is extremely
important to keep your anti-virus software constantly updated to
include protection against new lists of virus threats.
When the antivirus software detects a virus-infected file, the
software can either repair the file, or remove it to prevent the
viral code from spreading to other files in the system. Once a
new virus is detected, the codes are sent to virus analysis
centers. These centers then conduct a thorough analysis of the
virus, and work out a string of programs to identify and protect
against this newly discovered virus. The fix is then added into
a database from where the users can download the updated version
of the antivirus program.
Most of the advanced antivirus software follow four main methods
of virus detection. These methods include: scanning, integrity
checking, interception, and heuristic detection. Scanning and
interception are the most commonly used methods for most of the
popular anti-virus software. The other two procedures are used
by some lesser- known antivirus packages. However, the scanning
process used by major antivirus programs can only be effective
when the virus is recognizable to the software. Scanning,
however, is not an effective solution for dealing with new
viruses. Thus the role of antivirus analysis centers becomes
extremely important and significant in the ongoing fight against
new virus threats.
Anti-virus programs are generally not used for restoring
data. That job is for
continuous data protection and
file backup tools.
Viruses are often successful in damaging the files, in
which case the best protection is to always backup your files.
In cases where the file has only been infected but not damaged,
virus scanners will be able to restore it to its pre-infected
form by deleting the viral codes from it. But antivirus programs
are ineffective against viruses that damage system files. The
only way to recover from such damage is by cleaning all the
infected files and reinstalling them from backups.
BackupChain DriveMaker can help you map your FTP drive and run a virus scan on a virtual drive V:\ which you can set up to point to ftp://your-own-server.com. In addition, files can be edited directly via any Microsoft Windows program, even the command line, on that virtual drive.