With the amount of viruses that can potentially infect your computer continually growing it is extremely important to protect your computer. The best way to protect your computer is to install and use a good virus protection program on your computer. Without a good virus scan program your computer is completely open to be infected with viruses. If your computer gets infected with a virus many bad things can happen. Exactly what could happen depends on what the virus is programmed to do, some things that could happen though are: files getting erased, programs not working, computer freezing up or not even starting, or the virus could even track what you are doing on your computer and gather personal information like bank account numbers or passwords. You should also make sure to regularly check for updates to your virus protection software to ensure that your computer is protected against new viruses. Some of the better virus protection programs that you may want to consider using are: Norton, McAfee, or if you are looking for a free program you can try Avast.
What you can do Yourself.
Besides just using an virus protection program there are a few other things that you can do to help protect your computer from a computer virus. One thing that you should do is, never click on a link in an e-mail from someone that you do not know. Clicking on anything in an e-mail from an unknown sender could actually send you somewhere that will download a virus. The best option is not to even open the e-mail, if you don’t know the person an e-mail is from just delete it. Another thing that you can do is to avoid using any flash drives or portable hard drives that have been connected to other computers. You should also avoid downloading any programs from any websites that you are unfamiliar with, especially if you do not know if the program was made by a reputable company.