Computer viruses can do a lot of harm to your computer. Fortunately, you can catch computer viruses before your computer does. Whether you’re checking your email, playing on your gaming laptop, or just surfing the web, you never know when a virus is lurking around the corner. The following are a few ways to keep your system healthy and working well.

Be on Alert for Fishy Emails

A fishy email is one where there is an attachment that isn’t obvious. If a friend sends you a few paragraphs explaining why the attachment is a PDF file and it has a name relating to the email’s topic, it’s probably okay. On the other hand, if the email is super short, has a random link or has really bad English, it may not actually be from your friend. If you have any doubts about trusting the attachment, don’t open it.

Use Anti-virus Software

Without anti-virus software, your computer is going to acquire viruses within minutes. Each new virus further taxes your system’s resources, so the computer you paid for will end up serving a dozen other people while it sits on your desk ignoring you. Just get some good anti-virus software, keep it updated and most of your virus problems will never happen.

Disable Javascript by Default

Even the best tablet computer deals are only as good as keeping the tablet itself virus-free, and hackers have gotten sophisticated about how they try to infect your computer. Often they will use Java to encode their malicious code into websites, frequently repackaging the code so that signature scans won’t be able to protect you. However, you can stop this by disabling Javascript on sites that are not trusted to the highest extent.

Share Properly

Sharing through social media, external hard drives, data disks and file sharing services through the cloud can all be great ways to exchange data. But you have to decide whether getting a movie or a piece of music for free is worth potentially infecting your computer. You also need to make sure you scan anything you download anywhere with a program that has up to date virus definitions.

Don’t Log Into Accounts From Links

Logging into an account from a link you receive through an IM, a text or an email is almost always a scam of some sort. It usually involves uploading a virus to your computer or directing you through a phony site that is designed to collect your account information. Sometimes such a scam does both of these things and gets even more out of you.

When your computer is virus-free, you can have a lot more fun and get a lot more work done. Implement the tips above to keep your system free of malware. Do you have any better ideas for keeping your computer clean?

2018 update:

As phone scams have been on the rise in recent times, I suggest you visit http://backgroundchecks.org/reverse-phone-lookup/phone-scams for information on how to protect yourself better – especially against the common and very effective lottery, tech support and fake charities scams. Share the information and protect others as well!

Sources:

https://www.lifewire.com/top-online-scams-153134

https://www.lifewire.com/learn-how-antivirus-4102748

https://www.comparitech.com/antivirus/guides/antivirus-software-an-analysis-of-why-you-need-it-and-what-to-look-out-for/