How antivirus programs work      
In the case of new viruses for which no antidote has been created, some engines also use heuristic scanning. This allows the AV programs to flag suspicious data structures or unusual virus-like activity even when there is no matching virus definition. If the program sees any funny business, it quarantines the questionable program and broadcasts a warning to you about what the program may be trying to do (such as modify your Windows Registry). The accuracy of such methods is much lower however, and often a program with this running may err on the side of caution. This can result in confusing false positive results.
 
What does Antivirus software protect me from?      
The levels of protection vary according to the age of the antivirus product. Newer products include automatic update functions, scheduled scans, memory resident protection and integration with Internet applications such as e-mail clients and Web browsers. Older antivirus products may only consist of a scanner that needs to be manually operated. All virus scanners will protect your PC from viruses if used correctly to regularly scan the hard disks, removable media (such as USB drives, Firewire devices, floppy or Zip disks) as they are loaded into the PC, or any downloaded files prior to use. (Note: If you use a USB key from an infected computer on your PC, that does not mean you will get the virus too. However, you will if you run the infected applications from the USB drive.)
 
Differences between Antivirus solutions      
Fundamentally, all antivirus packages do the same thing - they keep your computer virus-free by scanning and cleaning files. Many of them even share the same integral scanning engine to identify viruses. The main differences come in the polish of the graphical user interface (GUI), the number of add-on functions (e-mail scanners, scheduled automatic updates, heuristic scanning, antispyware etc.) and in the speed and accuracy of the product.
 
What is an online virus scanner?      
Online virus scanners are free web sites provided by antivirus vendors to scan computers for viruses over the Internet. They are often functionally limited to scanning only certain types of files and most do not offer cleaning or repair functions. Their use is limited to providing piece-of-mind to users without full antivirus programs of their own and detecting a virus with one will usually result in an invitation to buy the vendors full product online.
 
Why would I want a personal firewall included?      
Any computer connected to a broadband link without a firewall of some kind is almost certainly infected. Recent research has shown an average time of around eight minutes from connection to the Internet to being infected by worms for unprotected and unpatched Windows XP systems.
 
Why do I need protection from e-mail?      
The rise in popularity of e-mail worms has increased the need for everyone to have an antivirus product protecting their system, but many products don't adequately protect PCs from being infected. Often the increasing desire for integration between e-mail programs and office applications has left security holes that are quickly exploited by worms such as Klez and more recently by the Netsky variants. In these cases, e-mail can be structured so just viewing the message is enough to cause infection on a system where the security patches are out of date, which is common.
 
Why do I need protection from IM?      
Instant Messaging is now one of the most popular uses for a computer online and it didn't take long before the IM vendors added support for file-sharing. IM integration for an antivirus product means that it will provide the same kind of protection offered by email support - scanning of files as they are downloaded and before they are made available to the computer user.
 
Updating your Antivirus software      
To keep your system virus-free requires a little more effort than just installing the antivirus program once then forgetting about it. New viruses are released into the wild every day, and in recent years the propagation of worm-building kits available to malcontents over the Internet has led to an increase in the rate of virus creation. This, combined with an increase in public knowledge of security problems regularly found in major software and operating systems, has led to an even higher rate of new virus discovery. No longer does a virus have to be skillfully crafted, but slightly different viruses can be created by almost anyone and re-released into the wild. This means that in addition to the product out of the box, regular updates are required.
 
System requirements      
There are antivirus solutions available for all kinds of computers and operating systems, though for older hardware or more unusual operating systems the Internet might be the only place to purchase them. For the newest products your PC will need somewhere around 40MB of hard disk space, a Pentium II 233+ processor, Windows 98/NT/2000/ME/XP and an Internet connection for getting updates.
 
Free vs fee Antivirus      
There is a catch though - some lack automatic updates, some lack e-mail integration and since free antivirus products are downloaded, all lack CDROMs with scanning software on them.
 
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