Antivirus software is a computer program which is designed to detect and eliminate computer viruses, as well as many other types of harmful computer software. Antivirus software use various methods to detect malicious programs, Signature based detection, Malicious activity detection and Heuristic-based detection are just to name a few. It is not the scope of this guide to discuss the technicalities of this method.
The critical factor of any antivirus software’s ability to detect any intrusion is its age. Since new viruses surface everyday, antivirus software has to be up to date to detect the new threats. According to Symantec, 711,000 new viruses had been identified in 2007 alone. Updating an antivirus software is as simple as clicking a menu “Update software.” Nowadays, antivirus products has automatic updates, which prompts the user when an update is available, all we need to do is to accept the new update request and let it complete.
Usually all the major antivirus products come with one year subscription, that means a user can update their copy of the anti virus program for one year. After the license has expired they have to buy the software again.
