Malware comes from the words malicious and software. Malware is like a virus that infects your computer without your permission. It comes in a variety of forms from being an annoying to a hostile to an intrusive program code. It can delete files on your computer, cause your system to crash, or even copy important files and send them to a different computer, thus posing risk to your security. You can get malware through the Internet, either by opening emails or browsing the Web. But don't despair! You can get rid of malware.
One easy way to check for malware is to use an online scanner. It will perform a scan of all files, boot sectors and system memory of your computer for known and unknown threat signatures of malware. Suspicious files are then quarantined. Once the scan is finished, you are presented with options to either selectively restore or delete these files. Of course, you should delete the files, unless these files are essential for your computer to run efficiently.
To keep your system running smoothly and up to speed, scans should be performed on a regular basis. These can be done either on a daily or weekly basis, or as the need arises. It is also important to update the anti-virus or anti-spyware that you are using in running the scans. None of these scans offer full protection as there are new threats every day, but running these scans diligently will hopefully lessen your problems and give you peace of mind.