Do you need antivirus software?

New and old computer users alike often wonder if they really need antivirus software or if they can get away without using it. The answer to that question is not always easy because everybody has different opinions about the answer. Some people think that if you are smart and follow a few guidelines you can get away without having to use an antivirus software program. Others think that no matter how safe you play it you can still be infected with a virus so you need to have antivirus software.

Whether or not you choose to use an antivirus software program is going to depend on your personal opinion, but many people feel that they are the only way to protect your computer from viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, adware, and any other malicious threat. If a malicious program, such as a virus, infects your computer, you run the risk of spreading it to your friends. The reason for this is that most viruses will use your email to spread themselves, most of the time without you knowing. The virus will attach itself to an attachment that you are sending your friends or it can even pose as an attachment and send itself to your friends by using your email address book.

Something else to think about is if a malicious program does infect your computer and you do not have antivirus software you are going to lose everything that you have on your computer. This means that all of those family pictures you have stored on your hard drive or even your school papers are going to be gone. In some cases, you might be able to save this information, but you run the risk of those files being infected from the viruses. The reason that you can lose all of your information that you have stored on your computer is that some viruses that you can get are designed to destroy your hard drive, no matter what you do with these kinds of viruses there is nothing that you can do to save your information or your computer. In other cases, the hard drive might not be destroyed but the virus can prove to be very difficult to get rid of, no matter what you do, you cannot remove the virus. In these cases, you are going to need to reformat your computer, which will give you a chance to save information, but you won't have any way of knowing if the files are infected until you reinstall them on your reformatted computer and it is too late.

People who think you do not need virus software think that you can prevent viruses from infecting your computer by not opening any attachments unless you know whom they are from. The problem is that you will have to call and verify from your friends that they sent you an attachment because many times viruses can attach themselves without people knowing about it. People who are against antivirus software programs feel that if you follow some simple computer safety tips there is no reason for you to ever need antivirus software. They feel this way because they believe that viruses cannot do any harm to your computer unless there is specific action taken by you. This means that even if you open an attachment that has a virus you cannot get the virus if you keep your computer and software programs up to date. If your operating system and software programs do not have the latest updates than you are going to get attacked by a virus if you do open an attachment with a virus.

Only you can decide if you need to have antivirus software, but for the most part, it seems that having some on your computer is better than not having any.