The threat of computer viruses is rapidly growing, which makes it ever more important that when you buy an anti-virus program for your computer, you pick the right one. There are few things that should be considered when choosing antivirus program for your computer:
1. How frequently are virus definitions updated?
As we pointed out in the previous article, virus definitions can be considered as rules which the antivirus software will use to determine whether a program is malicious or not. Obviously, the latest the virus definitions are, the better chance of detection.
2. Is automatic update of virus definition available?
Having the virus definitions updated automatically not only ensures that your software is up to date but it eliminates the possibility of you forgetting to manually update them.
3. Does the software has the option to setup routine scanning of the computer?
The best way to ensure your computer really has no viruses is to have an antivirus program which can be set up to perform automatic scans of the system on a regular basis.
4. How much resource it consumes while performing a scan?
Sometimes it is really a headache working on other applications while an antivirus program is scanning the computer, specially when your computer has low memory. When an antivirus program consumes considerable amount of CPU and memory, you can notice that other application running at the same time experience very slow performance. There is a noticeable difference between popular antivirus programs when it comes to performance.
