My Computer Wont be in Today. It has a Virus. Page 1.
By Matt Western.

In this article I will pass on a few tips and some advice that I hope you will find useful in helping to save time by deleting, removing and avoiding viruses (or is it virii?).

How can a computer, a device made of electronics and bit of tin catch a virus?

The term virus has been adopted by the computer industry to identify software programs that are specifically written to create havoc on computers.

This software (the virus) when loaded onto your computer can make itself known in many ways and each virus identifies itself in a different way. Some viruses are very destructive and can cause your computer to delete files, even not allow your PC to boot up.

Other viruses are relatively benign and just take up disk space and seem to do very little else.

Either way, once your computer is infected with a virus, you will want to remove it as soon as possible.

So how does your computer contract these viruses?

In an environment such as an office where there are many computers all linked together by a network, it can be very awkward if not impossible to determine where a virus came from. Trying to determine where a computer virus came from is like trying to work out who brought a cold into the office in the middle of winter. You can't be sure who the guilty party is.

Computers can become infected by a virus in several ways.

Email.
Email is a great tool, it is possibly the most useful tool or service available via the Internet.

Email is also a great way to distribute things very easily and very quickly. Computer viruses are not exempt from this ease of distribution.

Viruses distributed via email usually arrive in the recipients email as an attachment to the email. The recipient may receive an email telling them to open the attachment to look at a picture, read about a cake recipe, find out about a new web site or learn how to make money.

The message within the email could be about anything, but as soon as the recipient reads views or opens the attachment this is the time when the recipients' computer may become infected with the virus.

Web Pages.
As more and more people become aware that viruses are distributed by email and that it is unwise to open email attachments from people you do not know, it became harder for the virus writers to distribute their annoying wares.

One other way that your PC can become infected is by visiting a web page that has been created in such a way so that it can very secretly break into your computer and place the virus on your computers hard drive without you even knowing.

Fortunately this method is not very wide spread which is good, as it can be very difficult to detect these types of web pages.

Infected File Downloads and Free CD ROM's
Several years ago a very large software company distributed some of its' software to its' customers on a CD ROM.

Many people who received the software installed it used it only to find that the software that came from the company was infected with a virus.

You need to be careful when you download software from web sites as ANY software you download may be virus infected, either unintentionally or intentionally.

Also, be cautious when installing software that comes on a CD attached to a magazine or any other CD that you may acquire as it may be infected with some form of virus.

It is a good idea to, when possible, only download software from reputable web sites and the larger web sites generally scan all their files and programs for viruses.

Junky Free Software
Software such as screen savers, toolbars, date and time managers and other little quirky software programs are renowned for being used as vehicles to distribute viruses.

This type of software is also well known for distributing spyware or adware.

How will I know if my Computer has a Virus?

Several things may help indicate that your computer is infected with one or more viruses.

Programs Slow Down
You may notice that your PC seems to be running slower than usual. For example, you may notice that a program you use regularly seems to now open up or run slower than it did last time you used it.

This slow down in speed may be due to a virus accessing your hard drive repeatedly or tying up your CPU with its' tasks.

This will have the effect of keeping your PC busier than usual.

Internet Access Slow Down
You may also notice that your Internet access is slower. Web sites may take more time to load up or display than normal.

This may be due to a virus either accessing your hard drive repeatedly or the virus using your computer to send out many emails (this is known as spamming and is very widely frowned upon by just about everyone online).

The virus may even by using your computer to transfer data off it to other computers elsewhere on the Internet. Some viruses even 'phone home' or go back to a pre-determined web site to look for updates.

Now you may be thinking, Yeah right, that's gonna happen! Well yes it does. People who write these viruses are, unfortunately, very clever individuals (as well as being real pains in the backside) and they usually build in ways in which their viruses can hide, regenerate, spread and just about anything else.

Strange Messages Appearing on your Screen
You may even receive strange messages on your computer screen

In the good old days, this was all most viruses did and if you could tolerate a stupid little message popping up every once in a while saying something stupid, you could even get away with not having any anti virus software on your computer.

But that was back then and things are now much different.

These days most viruses try their hardest to hide from you and every anti virus program around. The last thing they would do is to pop up a message indicating their presence.

BUT it may happen and I'm mentioning it here for completeness.

My Computer Wont be in Today it has a Virus.
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Article © Matt Western - deTechnify.com

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Matt Western has been working in the electronics and IT areas since 1983. These days he heads up deTechnify.com a web site aimed at clearing away the technical haze surrounding computers computing and the internet.
You can contact Matt via http://www.detechnify.com