[bluenette]

I had quite a scare when I had a virus on my hard drive and computer because all of my work is on there. I have the CA Anti-Spyware program and it worked after a few scans and computer restarts. Right now I'm saving all of my work onto disks in case this ever happens again (I really hope not!!!) I was wondering what do you do to help prevent viruses? In the case of virus protection programs, do they work? What are the best protection programs? Should I do weekly scans and/or don't allow popups/cookies/etc? I don't know what to do and I don't want to ever get another virus again. Maybe next time I won't be lucky. And thanks for your help!

[apparition]

I've been on PCs (from win3.1, win95, win98/win98se, winME, win2k, to XP) for about 13-15 years and ive never been infected with a virus. i think the big key is just to be smart about what you do on the computer. you shouldnt open strange emails or that firefox_installer_5-0-2-final.exe or that music video thats only like 200kb big you downloaded for obvious reasons. becareful of fraudulent sites and spoofs, etc. disable activeX, or use a non-IE browser. use windows update regularly, and update other programs you use regularly to patch vunerabilities. blah blah...

of course, having a decent anti-virus, firewall helps too, but if you were a little more saavy, you could almost go without it. its strange though, its gotten to the point where a lot of anti-virus, etc programs have become so bloated, they're even worse than the viruses they try to protect you against (ie. norton internet security.. ).. ive even had my anti-virus program in the past (several did this to me) delete some of my files.. -- i guess it detected a false positive. something to keep in mind i guess.

i use outpost security pro on my desktop, AVG+windows defender on my laptop all behind a router BTW. im not sure whats #1 right now...but when i installed these, outpost and avg were i think at least one of the best... i think norton internet security has recently taken #1 for 2008? i dont know..

[Chonk]

When my computer gets a virus I just go to the store pick up some medicine and throw it all over my computer.
But it never makes it and once again I have another computer funeral

[awdark]

Firefox, web email (anti-outlook), and generally careful about what I get. Like apparation said, know the file you're getting if its just a EXE file... scan it first... sometimes I try to open it in winrar to see if I can view the files first.

I don't scan for viruses... I just let it run in the background.

So far no viruses...