Viruses, Trojans, worms, Rootkits, spyware, malware, adware and other malicious programs are specially designed to infect your PC and damaging them to even an irreparable extent. The main purpose of such programs is to infect all the installed or running programs to a state where they become irresponsive or damaged. They not only affect the software section, but are also capable of causing serious damages to your hard drive, RAM, and other hardware components that houses your important and sensitive data. Hence, you are required to have an efficient antivirus program installed on your devices, which can keep your machines away from such threats and inform you immediately about the same, if it finds a suspect.
Remember an antivirus can only block the access of particular infected files on your system, but it cannot remove the same. You’ll be required to run a virus removal program to delete all those infections that are lying within your PC in a hidden form. Choosing or installing the right antivirus program is although not a rocket science, but yes expertise is required to choose the parameters that the program will check before installing a program, downloading files, and visiting a particular site. Various tech support and online support companies are available round the clock to assist you in the same and you can choose the one suiting your requirement and budget.
Why do you need a multiple antivirus?
It is always recommended that you should run on a single antivirus application at a time, but researches reveal that none of them are perfect or complete. Some antivirus solutions may catch malware that other programs miss while an advanced edition may detect all the latest malicious codes that are recently released.. Therefore, you should understand that you can’t just rely on a single antivirus program, while dealing with the security of your system, data, and other personal things stored on your PC.
The idea behind using multiple antivirus solutions is that you’ll be running a single antivirus as your main background protection while others will be only used occasionally for scanning purposes. If in case you have a suspicious file and your background antivirus isn’t capable of detecting it, then, you can quickly scan it with different antivirus programs at once.
Why you shouldn’t run multiple antivirus programs at once?
Generally, antivirus programs are developed to provide a single security solution to all of those dangerous and malicious threats. Efficient antivirus software will operate in the background with scanning feature turned on, by default. Therefore, whenever you will access a website, download a file, and load a program, the antivirus ensures it doesn’t match a threat enlisted in its infection database.
The scanning, detection, and blocking feature will work fine as long as you only have a single antivirus running at a time. But the moment you’ll install multiple antivirus programs, it could result in degraded performance and cause system crashes. As the single security program will be closely knitted with the device’s OS. As a result, it will be able to perform excellently, but the moment multiple programs are installed they will interfere with each other and end up in crashing.
How to scan your PC with multiple antivirus programs?
Virus removal experts claim that no antivirus program is perfect as some programs may miss problems that will be easily detected by others. In this cyber world, where every second file holds the possibility to be virus, you need to get more defined detection coverage. To get the same, you can easily scan your system with additional antivirus programs apart from the one running at the background. Generally, Windows users have Microsoft Security Essentials (commonly known as Windows Defender) running in the background and you can install a professional security solution to scan your entire device.
You need not to install the additional antivirus programs and set it to run in the background as they can easily scan your computer once in a day and bring the desired results. There is no need to get those software installed permanently at your end because you can load up the additional programs, scan, and remove them after seeking scan results.
While selecting an additional antivirus program, always look for the one that has recently updated virus database and doesn’t match with the features of the one running in the background. The most important feature of the virus scanner is known by various names such as real-time protection, on-access scanning, background protection, or resident shield. You should ensure that your additional programs have all these features along with the latest ones introduced in the market a few months ago.
Below mentioned are some of the options that can be used for second-opinion scanning:
· HitmanPro 3 – How often you feel that there is an infection on your device, but you couldn’t find it using your primary security software? This is the time to install HitmanPro 3 as it will scan your entire computer and look for infections that might be staying on your device in a hidden form. It is a popular second opinion scanner that is specially designed to rescue your PC from various types of malware. The stubborn infections may attack your PC despite all the security measures that you have taken.
· Malwarebytes: It is a free version of security software that will perform a manual scan on your device to look for infections that aren’t detected by your primary antivirus program. It can’t be operated in the background that makes this software a perfect option for seeking second option.
· ESET Online Scanner: It is a highly responsive, quick, and accurate one-time scanner from the creators of NOD32. The software is one of the most frequently used online-scanning products as it includes the ability to remove malware it finds.
It is always recommended to avoid the more lightweight options, when looking for a second antivirus as the primary features are already fulfilled by the one running in the background.
How to scan a file with many antivirus programs?
Many times get confused regarding a particular suspicious file on your PC, as your antivirus says it’s malicious but the creator insists that the file is safe and your antivirus is offering a false update. Under such situations, you may want to scan that specific file with a variety of different antivirus programs to seek confirmation about its infection. Unfortunately, this process can become a bit difficult as you don’t have different antivirus engines installed on your computer. Even if you’d have tried of doing so, then updating each one of them with the latest virus definitions would be really a difficult task.
VirusTotal website, now owned by Google, is an ideal solution for scanning a suspicious file across multiple antivirus programs and the best thing is that you can upload files up to 32MB in size. Once you’ve uploaded the suspected file, it will be scanned by 46 different antivirus programs on VirusTotal’s servers and you’ll be presented with the report, as soon as the scan ends.
Scanning and detecting the infectious content is an important task while accessing unreliable sources, downloads, and suspected files as the infection can be easily triggered by pressing a single key. Some stubborn infections have the ability to hide themselves inside the folder located on your device and the primary virus scan cannot detect them easily. Therefore, you will need to install an updated antirust solution that is in par with the latest malware trends and holds a huge database of viruses that can be rare to find. Always remember that scans will not help you to delete the viruses, but it can help you in keeping them away from your device. Maintain a habit of scanning your device(s) once in a week to keep a check on the suspicious activities and programs running on your PCs.
About the Author: Hi! I am Brook M. Perry, a prolific blog writer and keen author of articles related to computer security and solution for issues related to computers and mobile devices. Being associated with the reputed best pc tuneup service provider Qresolve, I have resolved thousands of tech issues for our customers from worldwide. computer virus removal My areas of interest are PC security, endpoint security system, router support etc. You can follow me for my useful remote computer support articles on Ezine and other article-oriented websites.