Frequently Asked Questions - Broadcast 18th June 2009: viruses

If an infection happens, and your anti virus program has not eliminated it, then it must be solved as soon as possible, so your files will not be lost. You can come around at our service center, or ask another computer expert to solve the problem. Installing new updates for your anti virus program can also work, although sometimes this is not possible because it is prevented by the virus itself! In any case, do not just continue working! If you do, you will very probably loose files, and your whole computer might have to be reinstalled 

Unfortunately, you can. As said before, a computer virus can happen to every computer. It can come from everywhere: email, a cd, dvd, network, usb stick, and the internet. 

Normally, the antivirus program on your computer will show an alert that a virus is detected and stopped. In that case, everything is still good. The virus is eliminated, and you can just work on. But if your computer has been getting a whole lot slower lately, or are getting a lot of error messages, you have a strong indication that something is wrong. 

First, you need an antivirus program. There are programs for sale, but they are also available for free, see for instance www.avg.com.  Also, you need to update the antivirus program regularly, so the program can recognize new viruses. The new viruses are the most important to stop, so updating is very necessary. Then, you must make sure that you get updates for your computer software. A lot of viruses use an error in a program like Internet Explorer to spread around. You will not even notice when you get infected, but afterwards you will! Viafrica has a solution for these updates for everyone. For 30.000 shillings per year you will get the newest updates every week from us, which you only have to install on your computer. And if anything goes wrong, we are here to help. 

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner.Often, the virus dramatically slows down the computer, and it can steal passwords you type, and delete files from the computer. In the worst case, you will lose all data that was on the computer.