How often have you heard the tale of woe that a computer user may relate to others: there they were happily surfing the Internet, when suddenly out of nowhere the screen turned black, the mouse refused to move, and the machine would not turn off? There is a host of variations to the theme, but in the end they usually the share need for a new machine, costly repairs, and the loss of almost all of the data that was not recently backed up. Amazingly, many of these experiences could have been avoided if the thusly affected computer user had run a free antivirus program.

Antivirus software is the bodyguard that your computer has when you are traversing the roads, dark alleys, and back streets of the Internet. Unlike the real live neighborhoods where you can tell that all is not well anymore, on the Internet it is easy to make a wrong turn without warning. Your antivirus program is ever vigilant and only rarely allows a virus to sneak past you.

Today you will have your pick of a number of free antivirus software applications that can be downloaded from a large number of websites. Other antivirus packages are available for sale and often also offer a host of other benefits that are not associated with the free antivirus downloads. No matter which antivirus program you choose, it is important to run at least just one. Some computer users have found that a combination of antivirus software programs greatly diminishes the chance of anything or anyone sneaking through the barrier and thus they may run two or three applications concurrently.

While this kind of antivirus protection is not completely necessary, it does illustrate the point that it is not enough to have a free antivirus download, but that you will also need to in fact run the program. Too many users do not know how to tell if their free antivirus programs are actually enabled or if they are just sitting in their memory as disabled programs. Remember that it is easy to enable or disable a program, and thus you will want to check to make sure that your free download antivirus software is actually actively protecting your machine.

The best antivirus program is the one that is constantly updated, since so many of the viruses keep getting changed and updated themselves. If you fail to update your free antivirus program it is pretty much useless. To learn more about the many different programs available to you, take a look at the antivirus review sites that consumer groups have posted on the Internet.