Virus Problems? 
Sunday, January 24, 2010, 13:35 - General Thoughts, On The Onitness
Do you have virus problems with your PC? Virus scanners help to find and remove threats from your PC but the main reason they get there in the first place is probably because you let them in.

I've always said that 99% of viruses can be kept off your computer by not doing stupid things like: running dodgy or pirated software, foolishly clicking emails that have attachments, using websites that are in a genre that you KNOW are going to try and install things on your PC with every click.

Check out this link: How Does a Computer Get Infected With a Virus or Spyware? which list the top reasons why viruses get into computers.

So how can you help yourself to not get viruses? Personally, I think the #1 reason viruses end up on computers is because Joe Bloe has a trial of some program that they want to use and they find out that they can download something called a crack or a keygen and get the registered version of this software for free. So off they go to some dodgy Russian website with porno banners on the sides and search and FIND the crack for the program! Awesome! But you can't just click it and download the file. Usually you have to click 3 or 4 different things that give you popups and then you download a file which either doesn't work, doesn't exist in the end or, when it does work and is what you want - has a virus attached to it. So close yet so far.

So what to do? You have 2 options how I see it. If you like the program and the trial has run out you can pay for it legitimately. I know what you're saying, "they want $60USD for me to register!" and I hear you. I have never understood why software developers charge so much for their programs. I'd rather have a million people pay me $1 for a program than 10,000 pay me $60. The alternate choice to paying is simple - opt to use free or open source programs. Programs that are - actually - free or what's called "open source" do not require any payment to use them. They are generally regularly updated and maintained and usually have a decent support community on the internet.

Where can you find open source software? Users of Linux (an open source operating system) don't really need instructions on this, so I'll just handle the Windows side. Start here: Open Source Windows. If you want to find anything else that's not on there you can Google for the type of program you want and put "open source win32" on the end like: cd burning open source win32

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