Tech Table
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
September 17, 2013
Justin: Welcome to MPA’s Tech Table. I’m Justin.
Diana: And I’m Diana.
Justin: And we’re your hosts. We’ll be serving up a heaping spoonful of all things tech.
Diana: We promise, it’ll be easy to digest. Hello, Justin.
Justin: Hello, Diana. It’s Tuesday.
Diana: I like Tuesdays. Restart day, as we mentioned last week.
Justin: It is restart day on Tuesday. And I feel like I need a restart. Every Monday…I think Monday’s going pretty well and then I look back at Monday and think, “That could have gone a lot better.” So we’re going to try it on Tuesday. Today we’re going to talk about antivirus programs. We talked about that a little last week but something that got brought up in the office that was interesting is that they’re finding a lot of people have two or more antivirus programs installed on their computer.
Diana: I think I have, at one time, just because I…
Justin: That’s a problem because more antivirus protection is not better antivirus protection because believe it or not they actually conflict with each other and can leave your computer pretty vulnerable. First of all, what is antivirus protection? What is antivirus software?
Diana: Well, it’s something that protects your computer from any malware or virus program that you might come across on the internet, particularly. Sometimes you get an email and it has a link inside. It might look completely legitimate and you want to check it out. But if you don’t know who it’s from, if you don’t know exactly where it’s going to go to, don’t click on because you could get a virus from that.
Justin: Sure. Antivirus software is…we know the traditional: Norton, MacAfee. Those are the ones that I’ve had in the past and then there are free ones out there which we’ve talked about before. Microsoft Security Essentials. But any of these, even the subscription ones, if you are using them you need to make sure you uninstall before you install a new one. And that’s really important because it will leave your computer vulnerable to threats.
Diana: It actually makes it as if you didn’t have one at all sometimes.
Justin: Really? That’s interesting. When you have a subscription run out, if you have a subscription to Norton or MacAfee, that subscription runs out and say, you want to try a free software, like Microsoft Security Essentials, then you need to uninstall MacAfee or Norton and then install the new program. And that will protect your computer as much as it can be protected. And there are varying opinions. I’ve heard a lot of people argue whether the paid services are really better than the free service. At MPA, at our office, we recommend the free service. However, on one of my computers, the one I use for a lot of my, you’re going to laugh, but “high level work” that I do…I don’t even know what that means, but the stuff that I really want secure I still pay a subscription. I don’t know if it makes me feel better or what it is exactly but I use Norton on that computer.
Diana: Well, I will pay someone to put a program onto my computer before I’ll do it myself. For the same reason: I just trust it will be done right and I don’t necessarily trust myself.
Justin: Sure. It’s a sense of security. Basically, whether you’re using a free one or a paid one make sure you only have one at a time and that will give you the best possible protection that you can have for your system. Until next time.
Diana: Take care.
Justin: Tech Table is brought to you by MPA of Bloomfield, Iowa and God’s Country Radio. You can visit us online at at askMPA.com.
Diana: If you have questions or comments please send them to questions@AskMPA.com. That’s questions@AskMPA.com.
Justin: Thanks for listening.
Post your comment