Are Free Antivirus Programs Reliable ?

Free versions may ignore some viruses and spyware, or even install spyware themselves. Check the license agreement because it usually indicates whether the program also installs spyware or some mild form of spyware. It is best to visit the official website of the antivirus program and download from there instead of visiting unofficial sites that offer free antivirus programs that may persuade you to download program infected with a virus itself.

To know its reliability, consider some aspects such as effectiveness, user-friendly features, virus definition updates, scanning engine updates or upgrades, real-time scanning, and so on. Check what protection the antivirus program offers and whether the product is capable of coping with the latest computer threats because what would be the use of the program if it cannot defend your computer with the up and coming threats.

According to most reviews, there are five antivirus firewall software applications which have proven their reliability among their users. So, you might want to try their free versions prior to purchasing a licensed version. The most relied-on free versions include Avira AntiVir Personal and Alwil Avast Antivirus Home. AVG 8.5 Free is also popularly used, as are Microsoft Security Essentials Beta and PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition.

In a world where almost everything is controlled by microchips and computers, you must learn how to protect yourself and your computer. Whether you use a licensed version or a free-but-limited-in-features version of an antivirus firewall software application, you should only go for a product that is reliable, secure, easy to use, and up-to-date.

Source: http://goo.gl/CKQDd

Upgrade Antivirus to Maintain PC Security

For conducting day to day activities, we are dependent on the computer. Computer is like a workplace for everyone so you need to make sure that your workplace should be highly secure when it comes to the security concerns.

In order to secure your data from unauthorized access, you need to have antivirus software. Antivirus protects all the information or data stored in the computer from being infected by unwanted stuff. But it is necessary for you to upgrade antivirus software because day to day new viruses are being designed. You can't keep on continuing with your old antivirus software for the detection of viruses, which evolve on daily basis. To protect your computer from newly evolved virus you will need to upgrade antivirus.

Features

You can upgrade antivirus software in two ways. First way is to uninstall the residing version of antivirus and install its latest version. Other way is to go for antivirus software with the features that suits to your computer according to the nature of your work. Different types of antivirus software available in the market are Norton, McAfee, AVG and Kaspersky etc. We can discuss the procedure to upgrade AVG Internet Security 8.0 to 8.5. Go through the instructions given below to upgrade antivirus.

STEP 1- Go to the official website of AVG. Then choose the latest version of software and click "Renew and Upgrade" to upgrade.

STEP 2- Click on "Renew Your AVG Protection" listed under the section "Renew and Upgrade".

STEP 3- Write your license number in the text box appears on the window and click the "Renew or Upgrade my AVG" option.

STEP 4- Select the appropriate subscription such as one or two year subscription program and enter credit card information. Click "Next" to proceed further.

STEP 5- Finally click "OK" to begin the download process. Once you download the AVG, run the application. Your computer will take few seconds to install AVG.

Usability

Apart from AVG there could be many other antivirus software that you can upgrade. Above mentioned procedure is same for the upgrade of commonly used antivirus software. By following the instructions given, you could be able upgrade antivirus to meet our PC security requirements.

Recommendation

In case you feel uncomfortable to uninstall antivirus through the procedure given above then you can go for technical support vendors, which provide dedicated technical support to upgrade antivirus. Their technical experts will access your computer remotely via Internet and will upgrade and install antivirus as per the configuration of your PC.

Source: http://goo.gl/UfT6L

How to Get Rid of Antivirus Plus

Antivirus Plus is a malware that is setup as an antivirus protection software but of course it does nothing effective but con innocent users to buy their upgraded version so as to get rid of bogus viruses. This malware also generates fake alerts of virus infections and alerts of other adwares and malwares but it even fake an endorsement by Microsoft by bringing you to a fake Microsoft security page.

It fakes this security endorsement by infecting and changing your hosts file to redirect you from security.microsoft.com to its own fake security page, when it deliberately brings you to the Microsoft site for sake of pretense. If you check out your hosts file, you will see a row like "66.249.93.104 security.microsoft.com". Quickly remove this entry in the host file as it will redirect you from Microsoft website to their malware page.

This malware has the same modus operandi as other malwares. It will infect your system through auto install via pop-ups when you visit malware sites either through links or redirection from warez sites. It will also generate fake alerts on the web to get you to believe that you need the Antivirus Plus to protect your system. They also preload the malware into existing software so that you install them together when you download pirated software from torrent sites and install so-called free software. The virus distribution method is not new but it does get a fair amount of distribution quickly as most people are not smart enough to know that the it is not a real antivirus software.

Having the malware installed onto your computer is only the start of the headache. It will keep generating fake virus and system alerts and alert messages of viruses or other malwares in your computer and will prompt you to install the upgraded version of the antivirus plus tool pack. This malware will flood your system with error and virus pop-ups and will make it difficult for you to surf the web. However you should not give them your credit card details to buy the paid version of the antivirus plus. Upon sending your credit card number, you will not get any antivirus software but your credit card will be used without your permission to for purchases that are meant for nothing except generate money for the scammers. This will be dangerous especially if you are not aware of the scam till end of the month when you get your credit card bill, and you will lose not only the amount of money for buying the "full" antivirus plus and other shopping at the whim and fancy of the antivirus plus creators. Hopefully you will cancel your card before they sell your credit card information to more scammers.

Source: http://goo.gl/2eumN

How to Remove AV Security Suite

Guidelines on Removing AV Security Suite

The problem with programs like AV Security Suite is that even if you successfully clean them out of your system, they can reinfect it, if the software vulnerabilities that allowed their intrusion still persist. So make it a point to download all the latest updates of all the programs installed on your PC.

There are two ways of removing this malicious software from your system. One is manually removing AV Security Suite in safe mode or other way is to let a specialized antimalware or antivirus program handle the problem.

If you opt for a manual removal, you will have to first gather information about the Windows registry files and .exe files that need to be deleted to get rid of it. Manual removal can be risky as you may accidentally delete some vital system files. So unless you are an expert at such kind of manual removals, use a specialized software tool and let it do the job for you.

Before you can download and install such an antivirus programs for removal of this program, you must boot Windows 7, Vista or XP in 'Safe Mode With Networking' by hitting F8 on startup. Once the system boots up, open the command prompt and type in 'msconfig'. In the window that will open up, go to the 'Startup' tab. Deselect any suspicious processes or programs that are running on startup. Save settings and reboot. Once you reboot, open your Internet Explorer browser and go to Tools --> Internet Options --> Connections. Uncheck the proxy server checkbox which will nullify the manipulation made by AV Security Suite. Save settings and close the window.

Then install or run a preinstalled antivirus program to wipe out any traces of the program from your hard drive. Run an authentic registry cleaner to nullify any changes made to your registry. Install latest Windows updates and see to it that your antivirus and antispyware software programs are updated. This should take care of the problem for you.

Source: http://goo.gl/XhhOW