People normally only take this subject seriously, once they've been infected

If you've become infected, I've written a step by step guide,

If your just looking for some free, decent anti virus protection, grisoft is more than adequate for the normal user, with large friendly buttons, although its not the best anti virus software going, it has a good solid anti virus engine, and its suitable for most people, your email address is required for registration, I trust it with my computers nuff said

Q. ? will anti-virus software, completely protect me from all viruses

A. No, any security software is limited, anti virus is one of the most limited security programs you can have, bet you didn't expect me to say that, but here's why, all anti virus software even the latest most up to date downloaded the latest definitions, 2 minutes ago, isn't truly up to date, all anti-virus software, must follow the virus writers, first the virus is released, then it infects thousands of computers, then the anti virus people can try to cure it, even so a virus on your computer can be so devastating not having anti virus protection, is sheer madness, and the amount of truly new viruses are quite limited, compared to the massive amount of re written viruses, which most anti virus software should deal with quite adequately

Q. ? will anti-virus software protect me from spyware

A. No, although some anti-virus programs have started to integrate anti spyware software, its quite limited no matter what they claim,and its no replacement for real anti spyware software

Q. ? ones a computer becomes infected, will anti virus software truly cure all the problems

A. No, ones infected, the only truly confident way of cleaning a machine is to format the hard drive, there are lots of places a anti virus program can't check for viruses, anti virus programs can't check certain running programs or processes, there's also the inevitable problems incurred over holes in programs, if a anti virus program detects a virus, in a program, it will quarantine the infected part, meaning there's a bit of the program missing, which can cause chaos, especially if the program is Windows itself

Q. ? if that's true, what can I do to minimize the problems

A. re install programs that aren't working correctly, including Windows itself, this might help

Q. ? Why would people write viruses

A. The reasons are many and varied, from the because I can, to the Internet vandals destruction for destruction sake, some viruses are financially motivated, worms that collect credit card numbers, or other such information, and there are friendly viruses yes friendly viruses written by people trying to help you although these types of viruses will never be reported in the news as useful or benign i.e. all viruses are bad and virus writers are bad a prime example is the virus master blaster designed to exploit a security hole that Windows was repeatedly warned about but failed to address, the virus itself caused no damage but embarrassed windows into fixing the problem although this was never reported in the news like this