It is important to understand why having a proper antivirus software installed on your computer is one of the key features your computer needs in order to be protected and to prevent virus damage and other such problems from affecting you.

In the past, viruses were spreading through floppy disks and infected boot sectors. The virus needed a lot of user interaction in order to spread around. In order to infect a computer, the user would have to bring a floppy disk that has been used in another computer, and insert it into the other computer; while accessing the boot sector of the floppy disk, the operating system was tricked into executing a small program hidden into the boot sector of the disk, that contained the virus loader. Therefore, in order to spread around, the ancient computer virus needed a person to transport it from one computer to another. As time went by and computer users became aware of it, and with the release of first antivirus software programs, the risk from 'classic' viruses became much smaller.

Things are much different today. Viruses and trojans are now lurking around and there is a fierce battle going on, between viruses and trojans on one end, and antivirus software manufacturing companies, on another. The prize being, the average user's computer security. Modern viruses and trojans are much more effective at spreading around; in fact many of these malitious programs are a combination of both types of malware. They do need user interaction (for example infected emails have to be opened for some of these viruses to get activated) but they also have the ability to spread themselves around, either through collecting email addresses and then sending emails containing the virus as attachment, to all recipients found by scanning the user computer; they also can spread directly through performing TCP scanning on a wide range of computers, and then infecting vulnerable systems by exploiting known vulnerabilities in the operating systems and/or software running on these computers, that for one reason or another, have not been updated.

In the past, the viruses were attaching themselves to executables and in many cases this operation failed. Today, there is no need for that; there is a huge number of executables and other files in virtually any computer, so hiding amongst this large number of files is extremely easy. Viruses are much more effective today at spreading around and infecting computers; a well written virus or trojan can reach worldwide targets within a couple days from its release, causing havoc. There is an everincreasing number of virus writers creating such malware, and also all computers today are connected through the Internet, which is an excellent way in for most viruses and trojans spreading around these days. One over another, all these security risks contribute to an overall major security risk factor affecting virtually any end-user computer or server. Please note that an unprotected computer will usually be affected within 10 minutes or so, from the moment it is connected to the Internet. It takes that little time, until viruses, trojans, or hackers to compromise a computer machine and take control over it.

Thinking about all these risks, it becomes obvious why having a proper antivirus installed on your computer is the way to go. Together with firewalls, software updates and other means of protection, antivirus software is something we all need to have in our computers. We need a good antivirus, and this is not that easy to find. In terms of effectiveness, most antivirus software programs available today are pretty much effective, however there can be significant diferences in price, the speed of addition of new virus signatures to the virus database by the antivirus software manufacturer companies, and also some of these tools put a too big strain on the user computer. It is recommended to try a few trial version of such antivirus programs, on your computer, just to get the feel of it and choose the one that fits your needs and liking; please note though that you cannot use more than one antivirus software installed on a single computer at a time, so you need to unistall the old one before installing another. It is equally important to choose an antivirus that is properly and often updated; this is because new viruses and trojans are released each day, and some of these programs can reach your computer in just a few days, so daily updates are a must for any antivirus software. It is recommended that you use a paid subscription service for antivirus updates; there are a few free antivirus software tools around, for personal use, but the recommendation is to choose the professional versions if possible. It may cost you a little, but much less than the damage caused by viruses and trojans when they get inside your computer.