I hate viruses, and so does everyone else who has ever gotten them or will get one. Since 2006, 1 billion people have the internet, which means that there are now more viruses then ever.

Viruses come in many forms and with many different problems attached to each kind. Some viruses are designed to mess up your entire computer and destroy all data; others are made just to show you unwanted advertisements every once in awhile. Either way, they shouldn't be on your computer and can be removed by you manually or by virus removal software. First though, let's discuss the most common types of computer viruses and what they can do to you or your computer.

The most known and damaging virus type that exists right now is the worm virus. This type of virus can duplicate itself and it will use the email addresses from your address book, and send itself to those people. This means your friends and family computers could even become infected with this virus.

The next most dangerous type of virus is the Trojan virus, which is a sneaky one, hence the name. Trojan viruses sneak in by disguising itself as a program that provides a legitimate function. But really it is a virus that will damage your computer or steal personal information like passwords. There is also the backdoor Trojan virus, which if your computer was infected with it, someone could take control of your computer through your network or the internet.

Another more common virus is just a plain old fashioned file virus. File viruses can attach to real software, so that whenever you use the software, it will load into your memory and infect other files that are associated with that program. That means that the most important documents and data could be destroyed by one simple click!

The next type of viruses I will discuss is the most common on all computers today, and that is Adware and Spyware. Adware is basically just advertisements that are saved on your computer, and show them selves sometimes in a random pop-up or when you type in a web address that is incorrect. Spyware is actually the worst of the two because spyware can log your every keystroke, record every website you go to, and report your statistics back to an individual or company.

Those are really the main types of viruses that exist and are most common on the internet today. Using that knowledge in conjunction with virus removal software, you will be allowed to make sure every virus is removed and not still lingering around somewhere waiting to come out again.

Before I end this article, I would like to give you some very important tips that everyone should know, taken first hand from my computer experiences over the past 10 years.

The most important tip has to do with a computer crash from a virus. Bad people make bad viruses, and those very bad viruses will do things like deleting all of your data, destroying your operating system and maybe even actually altering you're BIOS. Your BIOS controls a lot of technical details on your computer, like your CPU's exact speed, system temperature and most of your components.

This is what you need to do to ensure you can recover from a virus like that. First off make a clone copy of your hard drives data every week, backup your BIOS once every time you change it or a part on your computer. By doing these steps, which actually take very little time with the right tools, you will be protected against bad viruses that destroy that information. All you have to do is restore the BIOS and fully restore your hard drive from the clone image you have, and your computer will be back to normal.

That is all of my information on viruses, and my biggest tip is, if you really want to protect yourself against viruses you need to get virus protection software.

Copyright 2006 Michael Cottier