Anti-Virus Solutions

Anti-Virus software is a must today. Not only should you have some, but it's important to keep it updated with the latest virus definitions (done online and sometimes by CD) and tweeked for optimum security. Make sure that the functions for scanning emails at every opportunity (when they are downloaded, opened etc.) are switched on. Also, make an emergency start-up (boot) disk, your software will tell you how and it will be needed if a virus crashes your machine and it won't restart. Some of the software available is listed below (prices are typical, for a single home user). These sites also have lots of information about individual viruses (and how to remove them/limit the damage) should you ever need to find out.

Avast www.avast.com/business
Avira Personal Edition 'FREE' www.avira.com
AVG AntiVirus 'FREE' www.avg.com
F-Secure Anti-Virus £49.99 www.f-secure.com
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus £24.99 www.bitdefender.co.uk
Kaspersky Lab Anti-Virus Personal ? www.kaspersky.com
McAfee Total Protection £79.99 http://uk.mcafee.com
Norton Antivirus £44.95 www.symantec.co.uk (also available for mac)
Panda Antivirus $20.99 per year www.pandasecurity.com/uk
Sophos Anti-Virus £? www.sophos.com (also available for mac)
Trend Micro Security £39.95 www.antivirus.com

For an online virus checker, try:

Trend HouseCall 'FREE' http://housecall.trendmicro.com

Many other email providers are starting to provide an anti-virus scanning option for a small charge, or sometimes even free. Hotmail now provides free anti-virus scanning for all of its email accounts.For other anti-virus info and services, see

www.mcafee.com
www.symantec.com

It's worth mentioning at this point that many email users are propagating hoax virus warnings around the Internet, not realising that they are hoaxes. If you receive any kind of virus warning, please check it out first using one of the following sites before you forward it on (it just takes a couple of minutes):

www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
www.truthorfiction.com