Is there Any Antivirus Software for Windows Xp?

As Microsoft Corporation has released new operating systems including Windows Vista and Windows 7, many people asked me that is there any antivirus software programs still capable with Window XP? Are you also the person who using Microsoft Windows Xp as your operating system? Don’t worry, you are not alone, there are still many people around the world using Windows XP including home edition, professional edition, service pack 1, service pack 2 and service pack 3.

Therefore, antivirus software companies do not abandon Windows XP. All popular antivirus software products on the market today are capable with Windows XP. There are both professional and free antivirus software programs which support Windows XP operating system.

1. Professional Antivirus Software for Windows XP

Professional Antivirus we are talking here refers to paid antivirus software version, it simply mean that we need to purchase license in order to get the right to use it. There are many of them; you can find out here Anti-virus Software Reviews and Ratings.

2. Free Antivirus Software for Windows XP

For free antivirus software, I believe almost all of you know what it refers to. Yes, it refers to antivirus program which is available to download and use for free of charge. There are more than several free antivirus editions for you to choose, they are Windows XP capability. Click here Free Anti-Virus Software Reviews and Ratings to find out more.

Viruses Protection Tips for Microsoft Windows Xp Users

Besides installing antivirus software in your computer, to get maximum security for your computer, you need to:

• Keep your Windows XP up to date by updating it whenever new update feature are available. The update process is usually done automatically if you turn on automatic update option. (Updating might be a problem for users who are using pirated copy of Windows XP; it is soon become expired after updating.)

• Turn on Windows Firewall. If you don’t have any other personal firewall installed in your computer, I recommend you to turn it on. Windows Firewall can help you to protect against any malicious behavior and unauthorized access to your computer through network and internet. Even firewall is not designed specifically for virus protection, but it can also detect some viruses which have malicious behavior.

• As new viruses appear each day, keep your antivirus software up to date is very important thing you must do. If you want to know why updating antivirus software is very important, you find out here Update Antivirus Software Guide.

• Using Firefox as web browser (it is free, secure, easy to use web browser and also the most popular one). Firefox will block websites which contain viruses and show a message tells you that the website is block as attacked site. Firefox it is my favorite internet browser and I am using it as default browser. You can download it here Firefox Download Page.

You may also want to know this. How viruses get into user computer? How to protect your computer from virus infection? You find the answer to these questions here Computer Viruses Infection Prevention and Protection Guide.

How viruses possibly get into my computer? How to prevent my computer from infection by viruses? These are two popular questions which many people frequently asked me. These are good questions. It is a good idea to know how to prevent before something bad happen. You will able to answer to these questions after reading the following explanation:

How Viruses Get Into User Computer?

There are many types of computer viruses as well as possible means that viruses can get into your computer (especially if your computer has no anti-virus program installed or has poor antivirus program or the out of date one). Read more to see what possible means are:

1. Data Storage Devices

The nature of viruses is that it can replicate itself and attach to file or program. Since data storage devices like flash drive, external hard disk and memory card are very popular today. Viruses can easily copy themselves and spread from one computer to another through these storage devices. To get clear, see the following example.

Example, Max uses USB flash to copy some documents from his friend computer (his friend computer already infected by viruses). When Max insert USB flash drive to the computer, most viruses will immediately copy itself to the flash (it is fast, you cannot even see the process because virus is very small executable file). After inserted his flash, now it contains the viruses. Max computer is easily infected by viruses in his USB flash if there is no effective antivirus installed in his computer.

2. E-mail Attachment

Another popular mean that viruses can spread themselves into many computers (can be millions) around the world is through E-mail Attachment. As E-mail is very popular and useful for daily life, many people are using it. Many virus creators see that it is a great mean and opportunity to spread their viruses using E-mail. Let see real life experience how viruses can get into user computer through e-mail attachment.

Example of this, Back to the year 2000 the virus name as ILOVEYOU infected millions of computer world wide and causing $ billions in damages. The virus was sent as an attachment to an email message with the text “ILOVEYOU” in the subject line. By opening the attachment, the virus sent a copy of itself to everyone in the address list of the user. This virus also made malicious changes to the computer system.

Now you can see how it is easily infected by viruses through e-mail attachment. So in order to protect your computer from infection, I have one tip for you: Never open any e-mail attachments unless you know where that emails from and what is inside it.

3. Using Internet

Nowadays, internet becomes more and more popular from day to day. You can find information, solution, having fun, learning, and even make money by using internet. Instead making internet a better place for users, some mean people using internet to spread their viruses. To protect your computer from infection, we need to know how they spread viruses. Let see how:

A – Visiting Website Contain Viruses: virus can get into your computer by just visiting a webpage which contains virus. Some people not even know that, the process is simple and nature. But there are solutions for this. But first I want you to kwon more in-depth about it. If I ask you who put the virus into that webpage? You can easily answer it: the virus developer or some mean people who developed that website.

Yes you are absolutely right, but it just one side. If we look at another side: we see that some website owners also become victim of viruses (they are not the one who put viruses on their site but hacker did). Because their server is hacked which make their websites infected by those viruses and also become the website that spread viruses. To stop spreading viruses, some websites were blocked as attacked sites by Google when you view in Firefox web browser.

Now instead of caring about who put viruses on the websites, the solution is main thing you have to know. There are two things you need to do:

• Using antivirus software which has web shield feature, this feature will check for viruses to ensure your computer is protected when you are surfing.

• Using Firefox as web browser (it is free, secure, easy to use web browser and also the most popular one). Firefox will block websites which contain viruses and show a message tells you that the website is block as attacked site. Firefox it my favorite internet browser and I am using it as default browser.

B – Downloading Files or Programs which Contains Virus: some bad guys are intend to spread viruses by putting them as package with useful file (including music, video, picture, e-book) or program (including software, game) for people to download. Many cases are happing especially for someone who downloading file or program from pirate download sites including torrent website. It becomes a target for virus spreading because those websites are place where people sharing and download almost anything for free (it is illegal).

Here are some tips for you to protect your computer from infection by viruses for download something on the internet. (1) Never download file from website you never know unless you can trust about that site. (2) Never download any things from torrent websites.

How to Prevent Your Computer from Infection by Viruses?

After reading above explanation, I believe you got some ideas about how viruses get into user computer and some tips on preventing your computer from infection. And now, you will see more detailed on how to prevent your computer from infection by viruses. To prevent your computer from becoming a victim of viruses you need to:

• Have an effective antivirus software program installed in your computer and always keeps it up to date by updating it. You can click here to read more about update antivirus software guide.

• Never open any e-mail attachments unless you know where that emails from and what is inside it. In some case, e-mail attachment from your friend also contains viruses.Example, your friend computer is infected by viruses or worms which automatically send e-mail attachment to all address in the list. If you are in that list, you will get one. That e-mail is not actually sent by your friend, but viruses did. So what is the solution? The solution is that you need to use antivirus software which has e-mail scanning feature. The program will perform checking when you open attachment file and alert warning message when it found any virus or suspicious file or behavior.

• Using Firefox as web browser (it is free, secure, easy to use web browser and also the most popular one). Firefox will block websites which contain viruses and show a message tells you that the website is block as attacked site. Firefox it is my favorite internet browser and I am using it as default browser. You can download it here Firefox Download Page.

• Never download file from website you never know unless you can trust about that site. And never download any things from pirate download site and torrent websites because most of files out there are illegal and many of them contain viruses.

I hope you enjoy this guide and get some ideas on how to protect your computer from viruses infection.

List of Antivirus Software Companies

You can find full list of antivirus software vendors sort by alphabet in the following:

What is Antivirus Software Program?

Anti-virus software is a type of security software program which is designed to protect user computer from viruses, worms, Trojans and malicious programs (the internet threats that computer users afraid of) as well as removing them. Today, anti-virus program has become one of most popular software category on the planet since there is increasing number of malicious threats on the cyberspace.

There are many new viruses reporting almost every day at antivirus software companies; there are just many of them range from harmless, annoying to destructive. Some viruses just replicate themselves, but some can cause serious problems to user computer such as erasing all data on computer hard drive. You can see more detail on Types of Computer Viruses.

Antivirus software is widely used for all levels of users including home, office, small and medium business, and large enterprise and available for multiple operating systems include Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD. There are both Professional and free of charge edition. Most of professional anti-virus software has integrate anti-spyware features, this feature can protect from spyware and remove spyware out of computer (spyware is small program that get into user’s computer without notify and take control on any activity of user, the spyware is created intend to steal your personal information especially credit card number).

You can click here Professional Antivirus Vs Free Antivirus Software to find what are the differences as well as which edition should I use.

How Antivirus Software Protect Your Computer?

The process on how antivirus software protect user computer is involving many technical terms. But I try to reduce some and make it simple for understanding. The important thing you should know is that antivirus software program provides user two security scanning functions (1) On-Access Scanning and (2) On-Demanded Scanning.

1. On-Access Scanning

On-access scanning sometime known as real-time scanning, it has important role to ensure that your computer is protected all time by checking for viruses to any accessing in the computer such as copying file, opening application and so on.

This function is very important, I recommend you to always keep it on and never disable it especially when you are surfing. I see many users disable this feature off since it cause slower performance in their computer (Yes, some antivirus software programs really make computer performance slower). They scarify security in exchange of computer performance. You know what, many of them, their computers infect by viruses.

Do you think this is a good idea? I believe “No”, absolutely not. You may ask there is any solution for that concerning to slow performance. Yes, the solution is that you need to have an antivirus program which has little effect to computer performance which runs in background of computer system.

2. On-Demanded Scanning

We have talked much about on-access scanning. Now it is time to discuss on what on-demanded scanning is about. When you see the word On-Demanded, I believe you got some ideas in mind. This feature provides you ability to do scanning on any areas in your computer including one or many folders, specific file or drive and even the whole computer.

After scanning, the program will provide you reports about what it had scanned, how many viruses have been detected, how many files or folder have scanned and so on. If the program found any viruses or infect files, it will ask you whether deleting or quarantine them.

What are Virus Detection Methods which Antivirus Software Use?

After reading above explanation, you got basic understanding about antivirus software protection procedure. Now, let go a bit in-depth on what detection method the program use for detecting viruses as well as other malicious programs.

1. Signature Based Detection

One common virus detection method is Signature Based Detection including both free and professional editions. For many antivirus software programs, the signature based detection is core feature for identifying viruses and other malware. How does it work? The process is simple to understand, the software use virus signatures dictionary (the database which contains a lot of virus signatures the company found) to compares the files when checking for viruses.

As new viruses, worms, Trojans, and other malicious programs appear each day, you have to update virus signatures dictionary in order to keep software ability to protect against new threats. If your antivirus program is not updated, it cannot detect new viruses because new viruses are not listed in virus signature dictionary. You can read more on Updating Antivirus Software Guides.

2. Behavior Based Detection

Another detection method is malicious activity detection known as behavior based detection method. The antivirus software will monitor and control any activities in the system for suspicious program behavior. When the program has detected that there is any suspicious behavior, there will be further investigation on that behavior by using signature based detection to ensure that it is a malicious activity or not. When the program found that it is really a malicious behavior, there will be an alert message to let you know about it.

Many people are still not clear what the difference between professional and free antivirus software. They would ask: which one I should use professional or free edition? Before answer this question, I just want to clarify first about free and professional antivirus version.

Professional Antivirus we are talking here refers to paid antivirus software version, it simply mean that we need to purchase license in order to get the right to use it.

For free antivirus software, I believe almost all of you know what it refers to. Yes, it refers to antivirus program which is available to download and use for free of charge.

Professional Vs Free Antivirus Software Fundamental Difference Table

Some fundamental difference:

Which One I Should Use Professional or Free Antivirus Edition?

I hope you get some ideas about professional and free antivirus software program as well as what are the differences about these two versions. There is one more question as I mentioned above “which one I should use professional or free edition?” has not been answer yet. If you ask me this question, I would say:

I would recommend you a professional antivirus edition “if you can support it“. Because it provides you more security features and more convenience than free version. Let see what I said:

1. More Security Features

Professional version has more security features than free version, it has more ability to protect and remove many types of malware. Let see the summary in the following:

• Pro Version: Anti-virus, Protection against Worms and Trojans, Anti-spyware and adware, Anti-Rootkits, Web Shield.

• Free Version: Anti-virus, Protection against Worms and Trojans.(Note: Anti-spyware also include in free edition for some companies like AVG, Avast! but just basic protection)

2. More Convenience

Since the company got money from selling professional edition, they also provide you more convenience as return to what you have paid.

• You get technical support and help from company when you have problem.

• You do not need to find other free anti-spyware, free anti-rootkits software to install in your computer. Just one professional antivirus package has these features.