A is for Antivirus
Most PC owners know that a good antivirus product will keep their PC safe from viruses and other rogue software; and you could say that Antivirus software has become an absolutely essential addition to any PC system.
Antivirus software usually works by scanning files for a virus “signature”. In other words it looks for a known pattern of computer code. As part of its installation the antivirus software stores a library of these patterns of code which should be updated regularly as new viruses are discovered.
The best antivirus software programs, however, use another way of detecting viruses on a PC called heuristics. With this method the antivirus software tries to analyse what the code it is scanning is trying to do, such as search the hard disk for email addresses or delete all picture files. In this way it is possible for antivirus software to catch viruses before they have been added to its library of patterns.
If a virus is detected it is usual to allow the antivirus software to “quarantine” it. This means the file is renamed and moved to a folder (usually called “quarantine” or “chest”) so it cannot spread. Other options are for the antivirus software to delete or try to clean a file (take out the virus part of the file).
Sometimes regular software can perform some action that causes the antivirus software to recognise it as a virus. This is called a “false positive”. So long as the antivirus software has been set up to move infected files to quarantine it can be retrieved easily and the antivirus software set to recognise this file as safe.
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