What are the Functions of an ANTIVIRUS?

 

What are the Functions of an ANTIVIRUS?

What is an Antivirus? If you have arrived here, you may have a virus or malicious software, but first you have to know that computers have many basic dangers in their use, because they are highly sensitive components, susceptible to the acquisition of viruses and malware. That is why many users choose to download antivirus tools, however, if they do not know what these resources are about, then all their information will be mentioned in detail.

What is an ANTIVIRUS?

An antivirus is an online resource that protects the computer from different threats existing in the system, such as viruses of any type and also malware. These programs basically function as a filter between the computer in a basic way and the rest of the digital world, such as the internet or the input and output peripherals that can trigger viruses in the system.

 

However, these not only detect viruses, but also remove them depending on their location, and also perform protection settings throughout the system. These mostly work with a link code, which establishes input limits to the computer, thus allowing knowing the information of any type of data supplied on the PC. Despite this, these components do not manage such information; they only receive it, read it, detect dangerous changes and leave it in its starting place, that is, they basically function as a remote reading component.

Antivirus rating

Likewise, these tools are divided into different sections depending on their specifications, among them we can mention:

 

According to your objective:

·         Antispyware: These are entirely protective components, which basically eliminate the possibility of hackers to access the system, and they are always running in the background inside the PC.

 

·         Antispam: Most of them are managing emails or web applications, where they delete all kinds of spam messages (with dubious origin) from the platform.

 

·         Firewall: It acts as an existing wall between the devices itself and the rest of the digital world, since it provides established limits from where they can detect and stop viruses that want to access the system.

 

·         Antipop-us: Most of the antivirus has them linked, and they also block access to pop-up windows on the computer, in order to suppress their execution and block the entry of malware.

 

·         Antimalware: In general, antivirus has this objective by default, since it detects components identified as malware and removes them before they become a major threat on the computer.

 

According to its function:

·         Detectors: Whose sole function is to carry out preventive analyzes, and quickly detect the existence of viruses or malware to inform the user immediately.

 

·         Heuristics: They are very famous on the web, what they carry out is execution of programs in the background simultaneously to detect the type of behavior that each of them has.

 

·         Eliminators: These often work in conjunction with detectors, as they simply search for the computer virus or worm and delete it with a set protection code.

 

·         Immunizers: This type of Antivirus Software usually comes with the computer's disks, and they also detect and analyze possible failures in the execution of predetermined programs.

 

According to its category

·         Traditional antivirus: It is one that is downloaded and installed on the computer, and provides real-time security to the system, since it is always in the background.

 

·         Online antivirus: These are all those resources that are obtained through web pages that analyze and detect viruses in the system, but are not downloaded or installed on the PC.

 

General functions of antivirus

Despite the fact that we previously mentioned how antivirus is classified according to their function, there are certain specifications that all these tools present in a basic way, among which we can mention:

 

Firewall / Firewall

In this case, it is a type of protection, which generates a detailed reading of all the information that is provided to the device, in order to detect possible threats. Placing it in a routine context, it is a simple wall that does not allow certain resources to pass to the computer, such as known malware or viruses so that they do not infect or slow down its operation. Likewise, this firewall is positioned not only on input peripherals such as USB or disks , but also with any type of information obtained from the internet such as web pages or downloads.

 

Anti-phishing and Antispam

Most Antiviruses have simple affiliations with the emails of computer users, and they present the functions of Anti-phishing and Antispam.

Antispam is simply a type of firewall but oriented only to junk files, which are simply components that do not have any type of information other than advertising or unnecessary data. And in the case of Anti-phishing, it is a resource that eliminates and protects the user from dubious origins , that is, it suppresses and alerts the individual of false messages that are sent with subscriptions from other Gmail accounts.

 

Information optimization

Although Antivirus has the sole objective of taking care of possible infections to the computer system, they present the possibility of accelerating its operation. They do this with the help of a resource known as "Optimization", which eliminates unnecessary resource executions that are occurring in the background. Which simply generate a greater weight in the operation of the PC and cause it to slow down and tend to perform its actions more difficult?

 

Cleaning the computer

This feature is one of the most used of antivirus, since it simply allows you to delete the junk files that are on the system, also known as "Cache". The latter are resources generated by failed or canceled processes on the computer, and that when accumulated also generate considerable weight within the web. However, as the antivirus constantly cleans these resources thanks to the reading of "0 MB" codes, they are basically deleted when they are created.

 

File management

It is true that basically by allowing the antivirus to perform the cleaning and optimization action on the PC, it eliminates any threat it detects, regardless of whether it is found in a predetermined file. However, most of these tools allow you to manage the actions that will be carried out on these files, and in general they manage to quarantine or delete them completely as desired by the user.

 

How does an ANTIVIRUS work?

The operation of an antivirus is very simple, it all begins when processes and information inputs are executed in the system, in this case, the content is thoroughly analyzed by the firewall. This last component contains a virus dictionary, which can be broad or basic depending on the configuration of the tool, and compares the input codes with the information provided in said dictionary. In case the antivirus detects a relationship, it proceeds to stop the virus and eliminate it completely with the help of the internal cleaner it has. Also in the case of optimization and cleaning, the antivirus has a dictionary. Only in this case it has codes specified for processes running in the background (In the case of the optimizer) and those that have 0 MB of information (In the case of the cleaner).