Stop email virus before they stop you from buying christmas presents

We all know anti-virus (av) products like symantec, macfee, trend micro.... etc.

In fact there are more av software found all over the internet than what we can find in retail shops/malls. so with more choices than usual, which one should we choose?

Of course the marketing departments of symantec, trend micro and the big boys will convince you that their products are the best, the one you must have or your computer is screw big time..

nothing is further from the truth..... what they are not telling is by using their products, unless your computer is running on say intel latest core 2 duo machine with all the memory you can afford before robbing a bank and latest fastest hard disk possibility mount on a PC, your computer will crawl.... it will not work as fast as you wish and worse, crashed your computer with the infamous blue screen of death.

But you will say, if i do not have anti-virus program, may i also screwed? yes and no.
correct, if you do not have anti-virus you are more prone to virus attacks but if you know what your computer is doing and behave as such, you will be a smaller target for virus to find.

When was the last time u receive a mail with subject "paris hilton wants to date you tonight" or "you have won a million dollars" then u open the mail, double click on the attachments (most virus mails comes in with an attachment) and you see your computer performing things u thought is not possible like switching down after a warning of 5 seconds. We term these as emails attacks. A simple solution: delete them without even opening them. lets get real, do you really think a bank will send you a mail on "you won a million dollars" when all they could do is call u on my cell phone? or better, what quality do you have to make paris hilton date you.

Another favorite is "we are updating our data and needs your username and password to verify" These attacks are what we now called Phishing. Getting very popular... and dangerous. These mails normally comes from "banks", "online markets". A simple way: Call them and ask what the f.... they need your username and password for. No business will ask their customers such sensitive question over a unsecure channel like email. Treat all mails content as half truth and also check with the authorized parties on the the correctness of the mail content... and one more, no need to call the number on the email, if the email is fake, most likely the phone is also phony as well.