How To Keep Your Computer Malware-Free
There is partial truth in the statement given by conspiracy theorists – You are being watched by someone. Software that gathers your personal information without you being aware, brings undesired change in the configuration of your computer or takes the control of your computer is called malware or spyware. The first step in protecting your computer system is detection of malware in order to remove it and save the system from damage. The second step is to keep malware away from your computer.
Malware is found in the form of adware, a software showing attractive advertisements that you have not asked for or spyware, a software that spies (you being unaware) on all of your computer activities or straightway malware, a software that without asking for your permission takes control over your computer system. It is a hidden enemy, spying and tracking all your personal as well as sensitive information without your knowledge as no permission has been taken on this matter.
Having known about malware, what you intend to have is security of your computer system from it; for that you need to prevent it from making its way into your system. For that you require a powerful spyware program that detects and removes the malware if found in the system.
Anti-Spyware software, available in market can be in combination with anti-virus application or a portion of complete Security Suite.
For using anti-spywre or anti-malware application, the first and foremost step is downloading the software and then installing the same in your computer. A scan is started as soon as installation is done. The moment you click ‘Finish’ button, your computer will be subjected to scanning process for malware. The time require to complete scan process depends on the size of hard disks of your computer. You can watch the scan taking place with the progress of scan shown on progress bar or if you have some work on computer carry on with that allowing the scanning process to take place in the background.
For computer connected to internet and when the scan of the computer is done for the first time, you may come across hundred of entries. That shouldn’t surprise you. On completion of scan you will be provided list of results. Each entry provided will have a description against it and gives option to remove it. After confirming that the listed entries, all you have to do is click – Fix Checked. Again you will be warned for removal of these entries but as decided these entries are to be removed, so click ‘Continue’.
Scanning the system, detection of malware if any and then removal of that malware from the system has made your system free from malware. But as you are going to continue working with this system in future, so as to prevent your computer system from getting affected by malware or spyware keep spyware software running continuously which will detect and remove spyware from your system in no time and will keep your system healthy.
Anti-spyware application has two modes of working. First – traditional or manual scan mode in which scan is given manually to detect and remove malware. Second – Real time mode in which your computer is protected when you are online and connected to internet. Running of both the modes at the same time will make your system too slow to work, try to avoid it.
There are free anti-spyware applications that will scan your computer and will show you the presence of spyware in your system but their removal will require spending of money, reason you have to pay for the part application where removal of detected malware is possible.
One major thing that you should avoid is receiving a pop-up on the screen once you visit some new site on internet advertising about the anti-spyware products offering free download. Once you are into the trap, the free downloaded file will try to convince you that various major spyware or malware have been detected in the system that needs to be fixed and the best way to do that is purchase their false anti-spyware product. Instead of fixing anything, they in turn infect your computer with spyware or malware that becomes a cause of concern for you in the days to come.