Having an anti virus software does not mean that the system is safe. The software should be updated regularly to counter attack the new viruses coming out. Everyday there are new viruses being released to the world. At the same time all the anti virus developers try to figure them out and create an update for it. The increase in the awareness of the users has been pretty good now. It has improved the efficiency of creating an anti virus for the viruses. These updates have to be installed by the users to get the latest protection.
All the current anti virus software builders has realized this importance and the mistakes that users commit by not updating the software. As a remedy for it now a days almost all the anti virus soft wares comes with the automatic update options. When a user selects the update definition option from the control panel of the anti virus, it will search for the latest update online or from another resource. Some soft wares have made it even simpler by making the software to download them automatically at a scheduled time of the day. User has to give permission by accepting the message displayed.
There are updates available for most of the anti virus software. But these are not coming at free of cost all the time. In many cases the service provider will offer around one year of free updates with a purchase of the software. But after that the user will have to pay for his updates. Creating updates involves lot of money. Analysts have to be on alert all the time and have to develop programs very fast. This needs big money. That’s why it is charged. Sometimes it will be better to go for a new version of the same software after one year, rather than getting the new update definition for the same version. The cost difference will be minimal, and there will be a free one year updating offer for the new version.
Time taken to create anti virus updates has decreased a lot in the recent past. Even the most recent viruses will be covered in latest update definitions of the virus guard. That is why it is advisable to keep updating and scan all the e mails and stuff before opening.
It is never too late to get an anti virus software even though it is better to have one as early as possible. Even when the computer is infected with a virus, anti virus program can come to rescue. When the system is infected, user can put the installation disk to the CDROM drive and run the setup from there. First it will scan the whole computer by running from the CDROM. CDROM cannot get infected because it is read only. In the worst case, if the system is not booting up, you can create a booting disk from another computer with the anti virus files and scan the infected system from it. it will either clean the hard disk or might ask to format it if it is badly affected.
Having more than one anti virus program can increase the chances of detecting viruses. But this will slow down the performance of the system greatly. It will take long time to scan the files by many programs. Best possible solution is to keep one good anti virus software and keep it updated as frequently as possible. This can eliminate many threats. Research has shown that most of the virus infected systems did not have an anti virus software when it got infected. Better to prevent the problems than finding solutions for it.