If your answer is «yes» to any of the questions below, you may be suffering a malware infection.
- Is your computer running really slowly? The typical malware symptom is the slow computer performance. Nevertheless, it may be associated with other issues including the need to defragment your hard drive or even annoying pop-ups.
- Do you get unwanted messages and do your programs run on their own? Certain viruses can damage Windows and other programs. As the result you can see unexpected messages, programs run and close when you don’t want them to and Windows can unexpectedly stop running at all.
- Have you noticed increased activity on the hard drive or modem? Email viruses send numerous copies through email. One of the key symptoms of such malicious activity is constantly lit light on the modem. Another symptom is the sound of constantly operating hard drive. These issues may have other causes apart from rogue programs but when coupled with other problems they can indicate that the device is suffering malware infection.
In order to detect possible viruses on your computer use anti malware software, check one https://bestantiviruspro.org/blog/best-free-online-virus-scan/ here. New viruses appear every day, so it’s really important to update the software on your computer. Many anti malware programs are automatically updated, although some of them need to be updated by users.
To check if there are viruses on your device, use Microsoft Defender. It is an antivirus software that is recognized as a part of Windows. It enables users to detect and remove viruses, warms and other rogue programs.
How to manually remove computer virus
Normally Microsoft Defender removes viruses from computers automatically. In some cases, however, you may require manual removal. You should resort to this method only if you have already tried other options, and you are an experienced Windows user. You are supposed to know how to check and delete Windows system and program files.
- To begin with, run your anti malware software to detect a virus. If you don’t have any antivirus software or it could not detect rogue programs, you can detect them by their activity.
- Write the text of all messages displayed by virus and if it was sent to you by email write the subject of this message as well as the file name of the message received.
- Search for the information about the virus on the site of anti malware software developer or in Microsoft Malware Protection Center to learn the name of virus and find the instructions on how to remove it.
After you remove malicious program you may find it necessary to reinstall some apps. Certain data on your computer may be lost, so it is always a great idea to make copies of your files to avoid similar problem in the future.