Why do I Need Anti-Virus Software?
Summary
Protecting your systems from the latest malicious software should never be overlooked. We always recommend our customers have some sort of Anti-Virus protection in place with the latest updates installed. Malicious software (malware) comes in a multitude of terms, from computer viruses, worms, Trojans, ransomware, spyware, adware. The most common types of malware available are viruses and worms as they tend to spread the quickest and cause the most damage to your system.
 | The information below is provided as a guide and we cannot accept any responsibility for any damage that may occur from following this advice. |
More Information
There are many different types of Anti-Virus products on the market, ranging from free versions such as 'AVG Free', 'Avira', and 'Avast' which provide basic protection, to more thorough security protection programs like 'Mcafee', 'Bitdefender' and 'Norton' plus many others. Microsoft also has its own version installed on Windows 10 versions called 'Windows Defender' however we find this does not work as well as conventional products. There is also another program called 'Malwarebytes' which provides deeper scanning of your system and can be run in conjunction with Anti-Virus software.
It is recommended that only one Anti-virus program is installed at a time as this could cause conflicts and affect the stability of your machine. Most Anti-Virus software will register that another type of protection is installed and will notify the user to this. 'Malwarebytes' runs seamlessly with other Anti-Virus programs however.
Changes can be made to your Anti-Virus settings which may help or hinder performance levels. Firewalls can be turned on or off, real time protection can be activated (which can be memory intrusive), or even regular scans can be scheduled to run on a daily or weekly basis. 'AVG' and 'AVAST' in particular, use a process called cyber-capture which performs a thorough scan during program installations. This has also been known to slow down the installation process and even corrupt the file at the end although it can be configured to allow you to over-ride the process. As a last resort, it is possible to disable the cyber-capture function completely, but this would not be our recommendation.
Anti-Virus Updates
It is paramount that your Anti-virus program is kept up to date on a daily basis to minimize the threat of cyberattacks. We would recommend that a scan is scheduled to run at least once a week at a minimum and the user is always made aware of online safety and the risks they take each day when using the internet. Any scheduled scans which are running may also affect the performance of Platinum therefore it is recommended that these are configured to run when the system is not in use, preferably overnight if possible.
Exclusions
In order for the Platinum software to work with any Antivirus protection, there will need to be exclusions put into place to minimise decreases in performance and enable the software to run across the network with minimal issues. Some particular programs also have built in firewalls such as Microsoft's Windows firewall which should be configured to allow access for specific programmes using the exclusions.
Please see this article for an example of exclusions which should be added to minimise issues with Platinum and temporary files.
See also
