FAQs About Antivirus Software

The best antivirus software is the one that works best on your system, has the functions you want and is easy to use. Because each system is unique, if you are buying a new antivirus software, you should evaluate several products to find the one that best suits your PC and your level of experience. Of course, you will want to use only qualified and reputable antivirus products that have been certified by the three leading certification authorities: Checkmark, ICSALabs and VB100, and have performed well in the rigorous tests performed by AV-Test.org.

There is also the issue of free or paid antivirus. In general terms, the paid antivirus offers more functions that can provide complete protection, to those who create an on-demand security solution can do better with one of the free independent antivirus analyzers. For specific recommendations on the best of its kind in their respective categories, see the following:

Do we need to have an Antivirus and an Anti-Spyware Analyzer?

It depends. Some antivirus products, in particular McAfee VirusScan, include spyware spyware protection, but many others do not. If you experience ongoing problems with spyware, you may want to consider adding a spyware scanner dedicated to the combination.

Do we have to uninstall the existing antivirus program before installing a new one?

If you are switching to a new antivirus product, you must first uninstall the previous antivirus. After uninstalling, you must restart your PC before installing the new scanner.

If you are simply updating the existing antivirus software to a newer version of the same product, it is not necessary to uninstall the previous version first. However, if the new version is two or more versions more recent than the previous one, then you will want to uninstall the previous version before installing the new one. Again, every time you uninstall an existing antivirus product, be sure to restart the computer before installing the new scanner.

Can two antivirus scanners run on the same system at the same time?

In the past, it was never a good idea to run two antivirus scanners simultaneously. However, if only one of the scanners has real-time protection enabled and the second scanner is used only to manually scan the selected files, they may coexist without problems. Some programs are designed to be the second scanner in a system. In some cases, an antivirus will not be installed if it detects another antivirus already installed on the system.

Why one scanner detects a virus and another does not?

Antivirus relies heavily on the signature. Signatures are created by individual providers and are unique to their products (or products that use those particular scanning engines.) Therefore, a provider may have added detection (ie, a signature) for a particular malware, While another provider may not have. For this reason, it is often better to run 2 different antivirus applications.