How to Avoid Viruses All Together

Yesterday I reviewed what virus scan products were best based on criteria I gave the day before for determining a good anti-virus system. In both posts I mentioned that there is a method for “avoiding viruses all together.” (I also mentioned I’d rather that you pay me to find out, but instead, I’m going to give it away for free today!) The secret to avoiding viruses is to understand them.

What is a Virus?

A virus is a piece of software that exploits a hole in the code in your computer and causes your computer to do abnormal and/or malicious things to you and your data.

What does this definition have to do with avoiding viruses? The key is in the “exploits a hole in the code”. You see, if you plug the holes, then most viruses are rendered useless because their means of attack has been removed. So how is this accomplished?

Don’t be like the next guy.

Viruses are made to attack the most common problems in a computer because as I said a second ago — they are most common. If you aren’t like the next guy though, then your machine won’t have these vulnerabilities. So how do you go about doing this?

• Remove Microsoft Outlook From Your System. Replace it with another mail program (like Thunderbird.)
• Stop browsing the internet with Internet Explorer. Use Firefox.
• Use a second-to-the-most-popular anti-virus such as Avast or AVG anti-virus. Avoid Norton and Mcafee Anti-Virus.

These changes will help to confuse viruses which are built to target the most common denominator.

Use these ideas to get you started in avoiding viruses completely.

God Bless,
-Daniel Kolansky