Antivirus versus Antispyware 

It would be quite silly to argue about how useful modern Internet is for exchanging information. Modern technologies gives the possibility to send and receive a lot of useful data, which can optimize your work, make your leisure more colorful and so on. Although the bright side of the Internet is really optimistic, there is always another side of the medal. In our case it is spoiled with various parasites (viruses, Trojans, password stealers, etc.), which circulate on the Internet constantly and threat your PC strongly. In this article we will dwell upon two types of defense against such parasites – antiviral programs and antispyware. What is more, we will try to compare these defenses and find out what common features they have.

Antiviral programs are serious defensive systems, which protects your PC from such parasites as viruses, Trojan horses, nukers, keyloggers, etc. As you see, these parasites are REALLY dangerous; some of them are able to damage vitally important components of your operating system (such as system registry or file system) and simply delete important information. Moreover, parasites like keyloggers are a real threat to the security of your private data; this means they can easily steal your passwords and logins by logging your keystrokes, writing them into special files and, of course, sending these files to the hacker. Antiviruses behave strictly with infected files – they usually delete them or put into quarantine (this means infected files stay on your hard disk but can’t harm your PC anymore). In our opinion, having antiviral protection installed on your computer is simply a must today.

Antispyware acts in a way, which is very similar to antiviruses’ behavior, but their aim is a little bit different. Parasites can be divided into several groups, and antispyware systems deals with groups of not so harmful, but really annoying pests. Such file, like annoying and unwanted toolbars, is the main aim of such type security system. Antispyware simply ignores destructive viruses (just like antiviral systems ignore spyware) and concentrates on detecting spies, pop-ups, tracking cookies and other junk, which sometimes may harm the infected PC. Right after that, antispyware acts same as antiviruses – offers several options of leaving infected files untouched, quarantining them or removing completely.

As you see, antiviruses and antispyware are different, but their aim is the same – protecting computers from harmful parasites and consequences these pests can cause. Of course, we would like to recommend having both installed on your machine – only such combination can provide you a good and reliable protection. Of course, some problems with compatibility might occur, but they can be easily solved by writing antispyware into your antiviral program’s “white-list” and vice versa.