Symptoms of computer Virus

Viruses are computer programs and they do their activities without the knowledge of the user. This includes deleting files, formatting a user’s hard drive, overwriting the system BLOS and completely disabling the computer systems. Some of the symptoms of viruses are listed below:

1. Programs take a long time to load. Memory-intensive operations take a lot of time to start.
2. Change in dates against the filenames in the directory. When the virus modifies a file the operating system changes the date.
3. The floppy disk or hard disk is suddenly accessed without a logical reason..
4. Increased use of disk space and growth in file size. Computer system does not work according to the instructions.
5. Renaming all the files with different names.
6. Corrupting the system’s data.

Antiviral software

Antiviral software is designed to detect and remove viruses from computer system to ensure a virus-free environment. However, certain types of viruses are difficult to remove and the damaged files are lost forever. Antiviral software may be a memory resident. Whenever the computer system is booted the antiviral program starts. It checks for viruses in all the files of the computer system. If a virus is detected, then the program will try to remove the virus. Some of the popular antiviral software is Norton Antiviral, McAfee, Smart Dog etc.

Safe computing

The spread of computer virus infection can be stopped through the practice of safe computing. Some of the steps recommended by experts to safeguard your PC from viruses are listed below.

1. Write – protect your floppy disk when using them on other computers.
2. Scan the mail or unknown files of internet before opening in your computer.
3. Use a good anti- virus program to scan floppy, CD disks before copying files. Recommended ones are Norton Antivirus and McAfee.
4. Do not install-pirated software, especially computer games.
5. Do not interchange the internal disk among the computers.
6. Do not use the free distributed software.
7. Scan the disks frequently and take out the virus infected programs and files.