How to Prevent Viruses and How to Back Up Important Documents

Having a virus on your computer can be one of the worst things to experience for any PC owner. They slow your system down, infect files, and cause many other problems that make everyday computing a hassle. In this article I will discuss ways to prevent viruses from infecting your computer and methods of backing up files in case of viruses.

To begin, a virus is simply a program that copies itself throughout one's system without ever notifying the user. I am sure many people have had problems with them before, including myself. I have actually had two occurrences in which my computer was infected with viruses, spyware, and adware, and neither of them were a walk in the park.

On the other hand, keeping your computer in "good shape" and making sure the viruses stay out of your system is something anyone can easily accomplish. I will call this step the "prevention" phase. Probably the most important thing to have when talking about prevention is anti-virus software. As the name implies, these programs help keep the viruses out, which is what everyone wants. They will make it harder for viruses to enter your computer, and if you do get a virus the anti-virus software will immediately let you know about. It will then "lock down" the bad file and delete it when needed or when you ask. Anti-virus software come with a "scan" feature that will let you scan your computer at any time. I have McAfee anti-virus software, and I've put it on a schedule to scan every Friday evening.

Another part of the prevention step is also very simple: be aware of the websites you visit. This is probably the most common place to obtain a virus and by simply not going to certain sites will also help. Now, not all websites are bad, in fact many are just fine. But there are certain websites, in particular adult ones that are almost certain to be infected. If you think a website is unsafe or you are not familiar with it, do not visit it. By simply entering the site you can get infected.

The other step is the "back up" phase. If by some chance you do get infected, which is always a possibility when surfing the web and downloading files, the most important thing to do is back up your files.

If you are a regular computer user, you will start to accumulate files, be it music, images, word documents, or spreadsheets. Some of these files will be important to you and you will not want to lose them. If you get a virus, access to files may be disrupted, and it might be harder to get to them. If you think you've been infected you need to make copies of all those important files.

By "backing up" you ensure these files stay safe. There are many ways to do this as well. Depending on how much stuff you have on your computer depends on how difficult and how long it will take to do this. Probably the easiest way to back up your files is to burn them onto a blank CD or DVD. Blank CDs have a capacity of 700 megabytes, and blank DVDs have a capacity of 4.7 gigabytes. More files require more discs, but this is probably the best method. Another way is by using an external hard drive. These simply plug into an available USB slot on your computer and vary in sizes, from about 20 gigabytes to 1000 gigabytes. These are also pretty easy to operate, you simply "drag-and-drop" files onto the device. One more solution is for people who do not have that many files. Nowadays, a USB thumb drive could hold anywhere from 128 megabytes to 8 gigabytes. Usually around 1 gigabyte in size, these could be used for someone with not so many files to back up.

Now by doing this, you have an extra copy of your important documents and you make sure they are safe. Why might you want to have an extra copy, you might ask? It is really for the worst case scenario, as in you had to buy a new computer or had to re-install your operating system. By re-installing the OS, your entire hard drive gets "wiped," or everything on there is deleted and you start fresh. All viruses are gone as well. This is something that I have had to do twice, but because my files were backed up, it was not a problem.

In Conclusion, viruses are a huge problem when dealing with computers. If you follow the "prevention step" you should be alright, but in case you do get infected you must back up your files. Having an extra copy is always good, even if viruses are non-existent on your system, because your computer is always at risk to some kind of problem.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_viruses