It is important to make sure your computer is safe. Why? The answer is simple. Most people who purchase a computer, store important data on it. Maybe the data is a bunch of old saved photos or memories that you never want to lose. Regardless of the purpose, viruses and malware can easily ruin your day if your machine is not protected. There are signs that you may have an infected computer.

Just like any virus, your computer may not initially display its symptoms, but you will gradually notice a difference. For example, with coronavirus, most people did not notice a difference until the 4^th or 5^th day, and then after days have passed their immune system gets hit with a tsunami of symptoms. The computer is the same way depending on the type of virus. Some of the symptoms include a slower system. If your computer usually loads pages quickly and you notice a drastic change.  Then you check in the task manager and notice multiple processes running in the background that you did not enable, this could likely be a virus. Additional symptoms could be pop-up windows, self-executing programs, computer crashing, and changes to your home page. These are all evidence that something uninvited is living on your machine, but there are ways to prevent and eliminate it.

There are several ways to build a good defense around your computer and if used properly your machine should be safe. Although a firewall can be somewhat annoying because sometimes, they want to block out everything it does not recognize; it can be a good form of protection. The firewall will safeguard your PC from attacks over the network or unauthorized network traffic. Another form of protection is antivirus software. The antivirus software will detect and prevent viruses or unwanted files from damaging your machine. However, this software, along with any other patches or updates that are pushed out, should be installed. These patches are sometimes released because of a known attack and can help save your machine. Lastly, choosing good passwords, safe internet usage, and downloading files only from a known good source will help ensure that you keep a healthy and stable system.