Protection

Most computer users who haven't been living in dungeons with dragons for the last 10 years are aware of computer viruses and anti-virus software. Viruses, of course, are bad, and can wreak havoc on your computer, causing it to do many bad things, from secretly sending Spam email to everyone in your address book to erasing your hard drive files along with the 1500 photos that your son/daughter took of him/herself to post on MySpace. So it's generally wise to avoid virus infection unless you're trying to get rid of those MySpace photos. That's where anti-virus software comes in - installed on your computer, it can protect your computer and, more importantly, your data from those evil viruses running rampant across the Internet. Anti-virus software is big business, and there are several software companies whose sole purpose is producing anti-virus programs to sell to all of us virus-fearing computer users. The big players in this field for consumers are Symantec and McAfee, but there are others like Trend Micro, Kaspersky and AVG, who makes a very good free anti-virus program. Of course, all computer programs are not created equal, and some of these AV programs work better than others. Websites like Virus Bullentin rate the effectiveness of anti-virus programs - Kaspersky and Trend Micro are two programs that tend to consistently score near the top for these ratings, and they are also two of the more expensive programs. But besides effectiveness, another consideration for any computer program is the way it impacts the performance of your computer. AV programs that cause a good computer to run slower are "resource intensive", so the balancing act with anti-virus software is to find an effective and affordable program that doesn't unreasonably slow down your computer. Although Symantec and McAfee tend to be fairly effective and are the most popular AV programs, their latest versions are also two of the worst programs in terms of affecting computer performance. AVG's free anti-virus program runs effortlessly on most computers, and the price is right, but there are other AV programs that rate higher at catching viruses. While AVG is a great solution for most home users, in our home I wanted something better for our computers - Emily has her laptop, our daughter Rachel uses the computer in the kitchen area, we have a home server for shared and stored files, and in my office (Emily calls it my "cockpit") I have two computers - my Internet computer and a custom computer that I use for audio/music recording and video editing. So I went looking for an anti-virus program that is rated better than average and doesn't slow down our computers, but wouldn't cost me a fortune to install on all of my computers. And what I found was a program called NOD32, made by a company called ESET. I discovered NOD32 while reseaching ratings of AV software - I noticed that NOD32 rated pretty highly, but I had never heard of this program. So I found the website and downloaded the 30-day demo, and was very pleased to find that NOD32 didn't adversely effect performance - not resource intensive. Finally, the price was reasonable - many people will only use free AV programs, but I don't mind paying a small price to get good protection for all of the data on our family's computers. Like most computer users, our data has become too important to risk losing it. YMMV.

As a side note, many Apple computer users feel that they don't need to worry about viruses and boast that they don't even use any anti-virus software. The truth is that all computers - PCs and Macs, even Linux computers - are vulnerable to virus attacks. However, since well over 90% of the world is using Windows PCs, and the Apple Mac market is comparatively tiny, Mac users are generally spared the inconvenience of virus attacks because most viruses are written for Windows PCs and don't effect Macs. But there are an increasing number of Mac viruses circulating, and wise Mac owners more and more are using anti-virus programs.

I think it's all some evil game you're playin'...