If you’ve ever bought a Windows computer from any major retailer, you know that most of them come with a pre-installed antivirus program, such as McAfee, Norton, or Malwarebytes. These programs are designed to be able to detect viruses on your computer system and get rid of them, along with many other possible combinations of features. They can be very useful in keeping your computer fast and healthy, as well as keeping your information secure. Here are some things you may notice if you have a computer virus:

• Very slow system response times (despite fast, healthy hard drive and RAM)
• Programs won’t open, get redirected to other programs, or have a sluggish response
• Peripherals, like mice or keyboards, don’t work properly
• Pop-ups come up randomly

If you know your way around your computer, you can also look in the task manager to see if there are strange programs and processes that you don’t recognize using lots of system resources. If this is the case, you probably have a virus.

At this point, you have several options. The Windows 10 operating system comes with an antivirus program installed out of the box called Windows Defender, which, to be honest, is more than capable of handling most virus and security threats. It can be found under the ‘Update and Security’ section in Windows Settings, where you can see its status and any alerts it has generated. If that is not sufficient for your experience, we recommend trying the free versions of several third-party programs, such as BitDefender, Avast, Malwarebytes, Norton, McAfee, etc. to see which may work best for you. If the free versions are not working well enough, contact us or start a remote support session for a free diagnosis to see if we can solve the issue and save you money before you shell out funds for the paid versions.

We can also help configure and troubleshoot issues with your current antivirus, whether you are having issues setting it up, you want it removed completely, or anywhere in between. Give us a call.