Antivirus programs are a form of anti-malware designed to sniff out malicious bits of code called viruses, but often detect trojans and some spyware as well. These harmful programs can cause a variety of problems, from minor annoyances to catastrophic data loss on the system. In the latter case, often the entire drive needs to be erased and all software reinstalled to repair the damage caused by the virus.
Antivirus programs monitor active processes, file attachments on e-mails, and scripts and cookies accepted from sites on the Internet, among other things. They generally consist of a background process that runs all the time on the computer, and a manual scanner that more thoroughly examines specific files or the entire computer.
Many companies provide antivirus programs, including Norton, Kaspersky, McAfee, AVG, and ESET.
However, despite their best intentions, antivirus programs sometimes can only identify a problem and not actually repair or quarantine it. In other cases, antivirus programs can interfere with the installation of other software, including important updates to operating systems.
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