Choosing an Anti-virus program

One of the biggest and most destructive worries on the internet is the issue of computer and information security and identity theft protection.

Malware and virus attacks can range from being an irritation, to a critical danger to your personal information and your computer.

If care is not taken one can find their hard drive damaged, possibly erased. Now even in such cases, if the information on your hard drive is of vital importance to you, there is always a fairly good chance that a hard drive recovery service can help you. This involves fairly serious in depth work in a clean room and as you might have guessed, starts from a little pricey and goes up from there. 

Nice to know the service is there, but maybe better to prevent problems in the first place.

Rather than use this article to promote one specific program over another, as most have affiliate programs that could cast doubt on the neutrality of my assessment, I will instead give a little insight into choosing and using internet software security of the anti-virus and anti-malware variety.

Please keep in mind that there are people that make a living doing the internet security thing. I am not one of them. Please do not take what I say as 'gospel' but rather as my opinion based on my experiences and observations.

That being said, I hope I can provide something useful to anyone new to the subject matter.

• Your first line of defense, before any protection tools come into play should be your common sense. Now this is not fool proof, as even the most diligent of us will make mistakes, but as a general rule, do not click on or download or open anything unless you know what it is, or have done a little research (google, ask friends you trust) to find out if what you are clicking on is legitimate.
• A lot of these malicious programs disguise themselves as protection programs. This can make things a little tricky, but nothing a little due diligence and research cant handle. Read reviews and do so with a critical eye. Also. no legitimate program that you did not download will force you into an action. These are always a scam. Do NOT click on these. (I usually go into task manager and close my browser down from there and it seems to do the trick)
• Don't get thrown off too much by " ABC detected problem X, but DEF didn't" as it is just as likely that DEF detected problem Y which ABC didn't, or even that ABC detected a benign (harmless) function as something bad (a false positive). As always, research is king as far as choosing your main protection,but also consider doing the odd scan with other programs. Most of them have free versions, so that should not be a problem. Just make sure that they are legitimate and also make sure they are cross compatible. Find out beforehand how well the program you are using coexists with other programs. Check FAQ's and official forums and you should find the answers you need.
• Whatever you use as your main protection,be proactive in keeping it up to date.
• Check on those official forums from time to time just so you know what current dangers to most be on the lookout for.
• Going back a little to the first point, I would also suggest only going directly though official sites, or a reputable download site such as Cnet. As always, a little research can go a long way.

At the end of the day I believe it is best that one does one's own research into what sort of programs they want to use. That being said, here is a listing of a few products, most if not all of which I believe have free or trial versions that regardless of relative effectiveness, I believe to be legitimate. This list may not be all inclusive and I really hope you will do your own research and not just take my word for it.

That being said, here is some antivirus software and anti-malware software that generally seems to be trusted

• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Eset antivirus
• Avast
• Kaspersky
• Malwarebytes
• Norton
• AVG
• webroot
• Bit Defender
• McCafee
• Panda

This list as I said is not complete, and also do not suggest one program over another.
In the end this guide might be a little frustrating to people looking for specific answers, but truly education is the best weapon. Different solutions have different strengths and weaknesses. Just as all of us have different systems,and different online and browsing habits.You are better off finding the solution(s) that works for you and that you are comfortable using.

I hope this article will have given you a little insight.  

Stay smart and safe surfing!