Vigor Geek

The video game market is currently bigger than ever and just about every video game is reliant on an internet connection. This is brilliant for a number of reasons, not least that new technologies make for better gameplay and that being constantly connected means you can play along with friends or against anyone, anywhere in the world. However, it’s not all great. As you are connected at pretty much all times, you do not have any real knowledge of the files that are travelling up and down your link.

Every day, new computer viruses are uncovered and it is estimated that there are one million additional malware threats released every day. A virus can affect your computer in a number of different ways, whether it is programmed specifically to harm your device, damaging programs, deleting files, or even reformatting the hard drive whilst others will look forward to steal your personal information. There are also viruses out there that will simply replicate themselves or rather, just flood a network with traffic to make it virtually impossible to carry out an internet activity.

It’s important that you combat any viruses with a decent anti-virus software program. Such a program will notify you if any harmful file is downloaded, and if you game a lot, it may be very likely that you download a lot of files so this is something worth turning one. Though with many anti-virus program, these notifications can appear frequently and you may, find that it disrupts your gaming experience, if this is the case and you do switch notifications off, be sure to run regular system scans. These scans will scan the entirety of your computer and highlight any malware before eradicating it from your device for a pain free and pleasurable gaming experience.

You may also be using extensions on USBs to enhance your gaming experience, or you may just store some of your games on there. If this is an example, the best free anti-virus for Windows such as Panda will analyse the USB file contents for malware before it even has the opportunity to reach your machine. The software will also offer process monitoring meaning that a simple interface with easy to read results from the scans will be provided. This interface will show just how many processes were executed, both medium and high threat levels and blocked files.

Panda is just one of a host of honest reputable anti-virus program on the market. All will offer slightly different services and some will offer things that their rivals won’t but they will all protect you from malicious software and if you’re an avid gamer, then it is essential you protect your PC. Failure to be done will put your PC at risk and may put an end to your gaming days if a hacker does manage to make their way in. An anti-virus program will alert you of any danger and you can immediately tackle that threat. It really does pay to be vigilant when gaming on your PC and as the majority of anti-virus software programs are complimentary, you don’t actually need to pay anything!