The Truth About Computer Virus' and Spyware

This article is intended to help you understand reality when it comes to your computer receiving a virus or spy-ware infection. You should not have to feel helpless or have to spend tons of money to rid your computer of these problems. Having the right information can save you a lot of work and money at the same time. Taking the advice of most computer professionals will leave you lighter in the wallet and with a computer that still may have issues that slow you down or keep things from functioning as they should. Most "computer pros" are after one thing, your cash. They don't take the time to fully educate themselves on the real solutions since they can apply a bandage and collect their take. I have been working with computers for over 20 years and below is an outline of what I have discovered.

Once a PC with any Windows operating system becomes infected, you can't really clean it up 100%. Even if scanning it shows no infection, you can't be certain. Almost all infections that are "cleaned up" still leave residual files and registry entries that could come back to bite you or a best slows your computer down.

Once you get an infection that keeps you computer from performing properly you need to reload the operating system from scratch. This is an easy thing to do, if you are prepared, and will eliminate any problems caused by the infection. To do this you need to have the reload disks or have it on your D: drive. When you get a new computer always know the manufactures reload procedure for that particular unit.

You need to keep your data separate from the disk that contains the operating system. Flash drives are good, but they can get infected as well. Best thing is to back up on the Internet. Make sure you are backing up to a Linux or UNIX server if possible. Most ISP's are already on that platform but some have Window's servers for people that use Front Page. With Linux and UNIX you can use extensions such as .jpeg instead of .jpg. Windows is limited to three letter extensions. This is another way to tell what kind of server you are uploading to. You probably don't have to buy additional web space. You usually get web space as part of your account with your Internet provider. Just FTP the data for your backup.

If you want to keep an infection from happening to start with then you should consider moving to a distribution of Linux. Todays Linux operating systems are as easy to use as Windows and perform much better. Not that they are unable to get an infection, they just usually don't. Most computer geniuses out there don't understand Linux so most of them target Window's many vulnerabilities. I have been using Linux for many years and have yet to install an anti-virus or spy-ware program and have never had an issue with it. I have heard Windows pros gawk about this for many years, but that is to be expected since they believe the world revolves around their operating system. They forget, or never knew, that most Internet servers uses Linux or UNIX because of it's resistant to infections, is stable, and works predictability as it should.