Viruses And Protecting Your Computer

First let's look at what a virus is and what is is not. Let us look at wikipedias definition,

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" A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. "

So there you have it. Quite technical and just a hunch but you're probably thinking " why do I need to know that?" Well you don't actually . You really need software protection and perhaps some insight into the hows and whys to avoid such catastrophes.

Lets deal first with why having a virus, malware or spyware can be so devastating . Are you backing up your important data? If you're not backing up your data you run the risk of losing everything. Sure some viruses can be eradicated sparing your data, but there are some which render your hard drives data unrecoverable. So it's wise to get in the habit of backing up your data. The only required tools are an external hard drive ( if you have large amounts of data) or a thumb or flash drive if you have a small amount of data to backup.  Once you have your external drive in place download a program called FBackup. The program is free and is customizable to run scheduled backups.