When you roam the internet it is highly advisable to have an antivirus software already installed on your computer. Should you accidentally click on a link you shouldn't, or are redirected to a suspicious webpage, the antivirus program should detect and quarantine most viruses that try to infect your computer.
But sometimes viruses do manage to sneak by your security whether it is by accident or not. Often this can happen due to individuals seeking free downloads from the wrong sites, or they try programs from third party developers. Whatever the case is, you have a virus, what do you do about it?
First thing you should know is that viruses need a signal to call home to. What that means is that the virus communicates with the server it originated from and receives instruction from it. For example, the server may tell the virus to multiply and take up space in your hard drive, or spread through application and files and corrupt them. The first thing you should do is disconnect from the internet, whether it is via landline, or Wifi.
Secondly, you should use your antivirus software to completely scan your computer. If you are in dire need for the removal of the virus, perform a quick scan to remove the biggest threat then do a full scan after your computer restarts to make sure you got all of the infectious malware. Programs we recommend are Malware-bytes, Avira Antivirus, and Kapersky. Even Windows Defender should do the job although there are more perks with the ones listed.
If you choose to do a full computer scan, it could take awhile depending on how much information is stored on the hard drive. Typically, the virus should be found and located with the first scan. Once the antivirus program has found it, it will quarantine it automatically and then you can choose to remove it completely.
If the virus scan doesn't turn up anything and your computer is still infected with the virus, switch your computer into safe mode. For more information, check out LifeWire's instructions on how to boot up your device in safe mode.
Once you're in safe mode, open up your antivirus program again and run a full scan. By having your device in safe mode, your program will be able to scan for the virus outside of the normal Windows system. Once it has quarantined the virus, remove it completely with the program's "remove" function.
