Some of the most common anti-virus programs are made by Symantec or McAfee . Most anti-virus programs can be updated right from the company's website and new updates are available weekly. Currently McAfee VirusScan is installed on all college-owned Windows computers, and Virex is installed on all campus Macintosh computers. Although you can scan files before you open or download them, this method is not fool proof. New viruses are created daily and even the most up to date anti-virus software may not recognize every single virus.
Some viruses spread themselves by sending infected e-mails to people's address books.
The person sending you the virus might not realize that they are sending you an e-mail at all. Make sure that when you send e-mails your own subject headings have some kind of significance. Do not perpetuate bad habits. If your anti-virus software detects a virus, clean it, and if the software cannot clean it, delete the file. It is never a good idea to keep a virus on your computer.