Now I could spend a month of Sundays telling you the in's and out's of all of the free antivirus programs on the market today. I could give my opinion on who is the best and who is the worst but I promise you that someone somewhere will shoot it down because they got burned by it. Viruses are written by the hundreds if not thousands each year so it can be rahter difficult for some antivirus vendors to keep up with every variant that comes out. This article is not written to prove one to be better than the other, it is simply written to give you options.

You don't need to pay the high cost for commercial grade antivirus such as Symantec, McAfee, ESET and that's just to name a few. I wont fool you, these are great programs and do an amazing job at protecting your system, they are  also packed full of helpful tools that may not be found in some of the free options out there. The choice is yours to make.

I want to preempt your decision a little by starting with the ground work needed to make a wise choice and to help you in the future. First let’s define what a virus is and a few of the different types that exist out there at the moment. We will be a little general as to the title of them but on the same token I want to help you with the terminology so that you can better understand what you’re up against.

Before we begin you need to be aware that there are thousands of virus variations scattered across the Internet at any given time, and they can appear in a multitude of different ways. We will only touch on a few common names for these viruses and what they impact. We all know too well how much of a pain it can be and its impact on our day to day lives. Rest assured you’re not alone in the battle to beat the virus war; our Federal Government is in the game as well trying to crack down on the individuals or companies that write the viruses. 

• Trojan Horse Virus 
  Is a non-self-replicating application that appears to perform a desirable function for the user but instead facilitates unauthorized access to the user's computer system. (In simple form, it is a wolf in sheep's clothing. This virus will look just like a common everyday piece of software such as a trusted Microsoft update, antivirus program, an e-mail ad, etc. you get the picture.) Once the virus is in your system it will open the door for additional risks that can be even more harmful to your computer.

• Malware 
  Short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The expression is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software or program code. (In simple form, just plain nasty and can be very damaging to a computer) The longer this style of virus remains on your system the more damage it can do such as lose of data, broken files, and the scary blue screen of death.

• Worm  
  Is a self-replicating Malware computer program. It uses a computer network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computers on the network) and it may do so without any user intervention. This is due to security shortcomings on the target computer. Unlike a virus, it does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or modify files on a targeted computer.

The next question is "what do I do to better protect my computer from this risk?" Awesome! this is what I have been waiting for. There are several steps that can be taken to protect your computer and all of it's data. 

• Start with yourself. most virus intrusions require human interaction for it to successfully attack your computer. Knowing the avenues that allow the virus in and the methods in which they attack you, can be priceless, and I mean that literally. You know personally what is installed on your computer, so if you see something that doesn't look right or get a pop-up that seems odd, you need to stop right there and ask yourself a few questions. Use the three "W" theory. What is this? Where did it come from? and What does it want? in most cases you can make a safe determination whether or not if it is a friend or foe after asking those questions.

• Use extreme caution when browsing the Internet. Don't count on just your antivirus to protect you. You need to take advantage of safe browsing practices. Take for instance what sites you visit, read  before you download it, and most of all, use a good safe Internet browser program, you can see a small grouping of them below. All browsers provide certain levels of protection for its users while on the Internet, such as pop-up blockers, phishing blockers, malware detection and so on, be sure to do your home work when choosing one, ask others what they use and how they feel about it.

• Now let's focus on another vulnerability. E-Mail is the number one avenue of attack for virus programs and phishing scams. Phishing is a dirty method of attacking people directly and acquiring personal information in an effort to get important account information, and personal data. Most phishing scams are disguised as legitimate companies and organizations requesting information or informing you of alerts to your accounts that you need to take action on. If you receive a phisihing e-mail be sure to contact the actual company or organizations that they are attempting to imitate. Most of these companies have links on their site to provide you a way of sharing that e-mail and they will take action against them for you.

• A less common avenue but yet worth mentioning is media. Define media, CD's, DVD's, Flash drives, etc. anything that can transport data can be a potential risk to your system. These sneaky little you know what's that write these viruses have found ways of embedding there Malicious software into image files, Audio files, and anything else they can get their hands on. They will pray on community sites using their files knowing that the virus has the potential of spreading through the contact list of every user and what would start as one file will explode exponentially until it is out of control.