Perhaps one day I’ll put this on a Frequently Asked Questions page, because we hear this quite frequently, “how did I get this virus, I have a virus scanner!”

What most people don’t understand is that when you browse the Internet, open email, and do most other things you do on your computer, you are constantly interacting with the operating system, or programs that reside on your operating system. What does that mean to you? That means that you are frequently granting permission to viruses to go ahead and install themselves, despite the virus scanner you’ve got running in the background. In other words, often when a virus gets installed on a computer, it does so because you told it to!

The virus writers of the world are tricky people. They try very hard to fool you into installing their software, and they do so by making it look like your either not installing anything, or perhaps installing something other than a virus.

The upshot of this discussion is, if you have a virus scanner, you aren’t necessarily protected (most often your not protected at all) and being aware of what your doing with your computer is the ONLY way to truly be virus free.