5 Ways to Prevent Computer Virus: Elimate Your Fears and Doubts About Virus!
What's Computer Virus?
A computer virus is not a deadly disease for your computer. However, it can spread like wildfire in your system and cause many annoying problems. A computer virus can bring unwanted files and pop-ups to your laptop. Moreover, it can also slow down your computer or corrupt a file or folder by encryption.
What if the file your computer virus corrupted was an important one and you didn't have any backup for it? Viruses can often land you at your least favorite places. Therefore, getting rid of it is the best option.
Computer Virus Trends in 2021-2022 Steadily Rising
Over the years, computer viruses have grown smart, just like other technologies. The smartness of viruses is more annoying for the majority of people. The rise of the computer virus can also be seen in the Google trends data. The chart has gone drastically upwards.
Types Of Computer Viruses
A load is a component of a computer virus that performs malicious activities. Any harmful action, even simple, harmless hoaxes, can be coded into the viral load by the malicious attacker. While some viruses contain safe loads, most viruses can cause problems for your computer and risk data leaks or corruption.
There are multiple types of computer viruses, some of which are:
- Boot Sector Virus: Such viruses infect the boot area and cause the boot time to increase or a failed boot process.
- Web Viruses: Such viruses are web-based and land on computers through browsers. Some latest browsers like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox have protection against web viruses. However, some older browsers don't.
- File-Infector Viruses: As its name suggests, such types of viruses infect and corrupt files and folders.
- Browser Manipulator Viruses: These types of viruses are the least dangerous. They can only manipulate the information and settings of your browser.
- Polymorphic Viruses: Such types of viruses are the most common in 2022. They are even undetectable by the antivirus and do several malicious operations inside your PC.
The Top 5 Ways To Prevent Computer Viruses
As the viruses have become smarter, you will have to be extra smart to tackle them. Here are 5 top ways to prevent a computer virus. However, you will have to adopt two or even 3 of these approaches to safeguard your computer against viruses in some cases.
#1. Take A Regular Backup Of Your Computer
No matter how secure a gold shop is, there is always a chance of robbery. Likewise, no matter how safe or secure you think your computer is, programmers will still find a way to throw malicious files inside your computer and infect it. Therefore, you should have a backup of your whole data to avoid any loss in such scenarios.
The best tool for a complete computer backup is Qiling Backup software which is also free to download. Moreover, it comes in 3 variants: Free, home and workstation.
The home version is recommended for individuals, while the workstation is for organizations. The best part about the home version is that you can integrate it with your computer, and it will keep adding all the data to its backup, which you download or install.
For the first backup attempt, you can start with the free backup software version.
#2. Install Paid Anti-Virus Software And Run Scan Often
Although, Windows now has a firewall and defender to prevent some basic levels of viruses. However, you need a paid antivirus to protect your PC from the more malicious ones. Free antivirus software isn't as effective as paid ones.
A paid antivirus can automatically kill the viruses, but if an old file on your PC becomes malicious, it won't be able to kill it without a scan automatically. Therefore, it is necessary to run frequent scans to avoid any such scenario.
***Check the five best antivirus software for virus scan and removal
#3. Promptly Update OS Or Software
If your Windows asks for an update, take no time to allow it. Other than that, always try to stay on the latest version of your operating system. The virus defense of old versions of operating systems significantly becomes weaker and more prone to malicious threats.
#4. Use A Firewall
Firewalls are advanced security systems that keep an eye on outgoing and incoming network traffic. A firewall, just like its name, functions as a wall between trusted and un-trusted sources of traffic, providing you a shield from viruses. Windows have a built-in firewall, but it isn't a specialist. Therefore, there are many other firewall providers on the internet.
#5. Be Careful With Any External Storage Drive
External storage devices like CDs, DVDs, and USBs' can contain malicious data and viruses that might transfer to your PC. Therefore, it is always good to be careful with such drives and scan any such drives before accessing their data.
5 Tips For Avoiding Computer Virus
Staying safe from disease is always better than curing it. Likewise, avoiding a computer virus is better than killing it. Therefore, here are another five best tips for preventing a computer virus:
#1. Don't Open Unexpected Email Attachments
It is the most common way to infect somebody's data or computer. Suppose you receive an email from an unknown address with some suspicious files. First of all, don't open it. If you have mistakenly opened it, don't download or run any of the files present in this email.
Still, if you want to open such attachments, the best option is to scan these attachments before opening them.
#2. Keep Alert With Email Messages in Plain Text
To avoid catching viruses through emails, turn on the text message alerts for emails. This way you can see and read all your emails in plain text instead of the email. Your computer or mobile can't be infected with a virus even if you open a malicious file in plain text. Therefore, it is a great idea to stay on the safe side.
#3. Beware Of Virus Hoaxes
There are some virus hoaxes over the internet which spread in chains like a wildfire. Such hoaxes contain a virus, and their owner will ask you to send it to everybody you know to alert them. Whenever anybody opens it, they become a victim of this virus hoax.
#4. Suspicious Links And HyperLinks
Links and hyperlinks are another easy way to trap someone in a virus. Therefore, you should stay alert for any such attraction. If you receive a suspicious link that does not start with WWW or contains some suspicious terms, don't open it.
Likewise, if you see a suspicious hyperlink in a website or file, don't open it. Both of these sources can infect your computer with a virus.
#5. Don't Download Anything From Pirated Or Un-Trusted Sites
There are a ton of pirate sites on the internet which provide you with downloads free of cost. These websites transfer viruses along with the files into your computer. The virus from pirated sites can corrupt your data or infect your computer with annoying pop-up ads.
Closing Words
Choosing one of the methods mentioned above to prevent and avoid a computer virus depends upon you. Every method has its utility, and you can select the one which best fits your needs.
No matter which method you choose, there can still be a chance of some data corruption or loss. Therefore you should always back up your data to stay on the safe side.
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