General tips on avoiding virus infection on pc

1. Install anti-virus software from well-known, reputable company, update it regularly, and use it      regularly.

2.  New viruses comes out every single day; an antivirus program that hasn't been updated for several months will not provide much protection against current viruses.

3.  In addition to scanning for virus on regular basic, install an  'on access' scanner (included, in most good antivirus software packages) and configure it to start automatically each time you boot your system. tis will protect your system by checking for viruses each time your computer accesses an executable file.

4. Virus scans any new programs or other files that may contain executable code before you run or open them, no matter where they come from, there have been case of commercially distributed disk and CD-ROMs spreading virus infections.

5. Anti-virus programs aren't very good at detecting Trojen horse programs, so be extremely careful about opening binary files and word/excel documents from unknown or 'dubious' sources. this includes posts in binary newsgroup, download from web/ft sites aren't well-known or don't have a good reputation, and executable files unexpectedly recived as attachments to E-mail or durin an on-line chat session.

6. If your e-mail or news software has the ability to automatically execute javascript, word macros, or other executable code contained n or attached to a message,i strongly recommend that you disable this feature.

7. Be extremely careful about accepting programs or other files during on-line chat sessions, this seems to be one of the more common means that people wind up with virus or Trojan horse problems. And if the computer make sure they know not to accept any files while using chat.

8. Do regular backup. some virus and Trojan horse programs will erase or corrupt files on your harddrive anda recent backup may be the only way to recover you data.

Ideally you should back up your entire system on regular basis.if this isn't practical at least backup files that you can't afford tolose or that would be difficult to replace documents,bookmarks,files,address books,important E-mail, etc.