What is a computer virus and antivirus?

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and considerably damage a computer. A computer virus can automatically spread from one computer to another from internet or with a removable medium. A Computer Virus is often confused with a computer worm and Trojan horse. Computer Virus and Computer worms or Trojan horses are technically different.

A virus is a computer program, which has the ability to destroy files available on a computer system. A computer program may become unusable by being infected by a virus. One may need to delete all the corrupted programs or data. Sometimes, a virus can be very dangerous computer security threat and can damage all computer software’s available on a computer. It is always a good practice to use antivirus to keep a computer safe. Files which have been damaged by computer viruses are normally damaged beyond recovery.

Antivirus software is an essential component of computer security. Good antivirus software will automatically detect malwares and other computer security threats on a computer and it protects the available data on a computer from various types of hacking attacks.

Antivirus is used to prevent, detect and remove malware, computer viruses, computer worm. Some antivirus software can also predict what a file will do by running it in a sandbox and analyzing what it does to see if it performs any malicious actions.

Most of the companies that offer a free antivirus product and these are almost as good as the pay-for companies. These antivirus-making companies make their money by offering a good commercial version too to the potential customers. These companies offer free antivirus software because they have to build their online reputation. Their main aim is to get referrals by selling the free versions. Free antivirus software’s can be just as fast or even faster in some cases at getting new virus definition files created.

A lot of the free antivirus software’s that we use today do not really are full versions. One may have noticed, most of the free antivirus software is trial versions and premium versions are available if you want to pay for it. The main difference is that the free version has limited features and premium versions.

Lastly, it is always good to have an antivirus installed in a computer to keep the computer safe. One can install a free version for home use and can buy commercial version after trying the free version of software.