AVG Antivirus
Viruses are currently being created at the rate of around one per day and the lifecycle (or deathcycle!) of a virus goes something like
- It is created
- Someone finds and reports it
- Antivirus software suppliers develop an antivirus measure
- You download that measure onto your computer
Even if you’ve got an antivirus product installed, between steps 1 and 4 you have a machine which could get infected by the virus!
What is AVG?
AVG is a free version of a very reliable anti-virus program (free.avg.com). It sits in the background and prevents viruses getting onto your machine by email, infected files or any other means, however, in order that it can provide proper protection, it must be kept up to date.
Anti virus programs work mostly by having a database or dictionary af virus definitions. This instructs the program how to recognise all the viruses and how to deal with them It is this database which needs to be kept up to date.
How do I update it?
Fortunately AVG has a built in facility which tries to keep your machine up to date for you. If you run the Control Centre and look in Tools > Advanced settings, you'll find areas relating to the scheduling of updates and scans. You'll see that by default, AVG has set up a scheduled task to update your definitions. It also sets up a similar task to scan your computer regularly. You can change the times when these are set to happen but even if your machine is not on when it's supposed to do an update, it will try to do it at the next opportunity.
What if it finds a virus?
If a virus is found in a file, its action depends on the type of virus. Many files can be cleaned (disinfected) without damage to the file, that is the virus code can be removed, leaving the file intact.
For some viruses this is not possible and the file will be moved to the Virus Vault. This is like the recycle bin except that it is safe; the virus can’t do any harm but it does mean that in extreme circumstances you could get the file back (complete with virus).
