My Recommended Pick
AdWareBot is the best all-in-one solution. It totally eliminates viruses, trojans, adware and spyware all at the same time! Really powerful product, great customer service and great results overall. Click the big red button below to grab yourself a copy.
A Five minute history of viruses
Like bad hair days, computer viruses have been around for a while. I love my hair, but going through all of the trouble of wiping a virus off my computer, I would rather deal with a bad hair day anytime.
Anyway, when combing through the Internet to learn more about these viruses, I learned that they have been around since before the Internet was even called the Internet. The first viruses ones weren’t quite so bad, as they were meant to just annoy people by eating up empty space. Later, they became more of a pain and started to destroy files. Most of today’s viruses are now aimed at creating holes in security to allow hackers access to our personal information. Not pretty.
Although there is some argument over which virus was the first one, I have found that all of the earliest viruses were called boot-sector viruses. This meant they were activated when the computer started, or booted, up. Clever name, huh? Anyway, most of these viruses did the same thing: they kept expanding, eventually filling your hard drive and making the computer unusable.
After Windows 95 came along, viruses started to become macro based. Macros are little programs that usually do some automatic function in a program like Word. Macro based viruses were the first to spread rapidly because they could easily attach to Outlook and Outlook Express email programs. I had to deal with this type of virus. You know, the one that attaches to all of the addresses in your email book and sends the virus to everyone you know.
It was around the time of Windows 95 that the Internet began expanding rapidly and viruses jumped on board. Many people say that the Internet is only good for two things and both of them bad: porn and viruses. Boy did that seem true. Not only that, these viruses were most often designed to destroy data and system files.
Viruses today are made using cross-site scripting. This type of virus uses holes in security of web pages to spread. These viruses usually create back doors in a PC’s security to allow hackers to popup ads, which they make money on, or steal usernames, passwords, and even credit card or bank account numbers.
Viruses are constantly ahead of security so watch out. You can get one of these nasty bugs at any time. Once you are infected, they are hard, but not impossible, to get rid of.