How and why utility software is used

I am going to explain to you how and why utility software are used, I have chosen to explain two types of utility software- Virus Protection and Firewalls

Virus Protection

Virus Protection comes in the form of Anti-Virus software and there are many different brands of this software readily available on the Internet and to buy in shops, some are free and some carry a yearly subscription.

Your anti-virus software will do most of its work in the background and will warn you if a file could be harmful to your machine and will also flag up if there are any infected files on your computer. You can open up the program and check various things that may have been blocked or quarantined. Also, you can set the software to run a full scan of your computer say once a week at a certain time, this scan will run every week at that time as long as your computer is on. Anti-Virus software did originally only protect your computer from viruses, but nowadays it can protect you from spy ware, ad ware, phishing scams,and also can have firewall built in. it save the hassle of maybe having four or five programs to protect your computer on the Internet when you can have it all in one.

The obvious reason for using this form of utility software is to protect your computer from unwanted viruses and loss of data, using antivirus software is highly recommended if your computer is connected to the Internet, as this is where most viruses will be picked up, through downloading of files or sending of file over email or IM, not to say that you can not get a virus on your computer if your not connected to the Internet. If someone connects an external hard drive to your computer their is a high chance that your machine will become infected with the virus. Viruses can do a lot of damage to computers, they could cause them to stop working completely, could delete part of programs which can lead to them not functioning properly or at all. Also anti-virus will protect from the likes of spy ware and phishing scams. Phishing is where people try to steal your personal information, whether it be user names and password or even credit card details. Phishing scams are very hard to tell that they are fake that is why you need the protection against them, phishing sites look legitimate to the site that they are trying to claim to be, and the person will usually receive an email, and follow the link, thinking that it is just pay pal looking to confirm their credit card details, and once entered this sensitive information has been sent to people who are going to use these details to buy things themselves.

Firewall

A firewall is a protective system that lies between your computer network and the Internet,
essentially it is for preventing unauthorised use and access to your network. Firewalls can be software or hardware. Most operating systems will have a built in firewall, also you can download a firewall, or your anti-virus software may have a firewall feature as well, this can cause problems, you need to decide which firewall you would want to have running because two firewalls will not run efficiently.

When connected to the Internet your are essentially connecting to millions of other computers and without the right protection people could be connected to your computer with out you knowing, having a firewall though will prevent this from happening, your firewall will automatically warn you if something is trying to gain access to your computer, you will be asked whether you want to allow it or not, in some cases the firewall will just block access, as it knows the risk it could have.

Types of Firewall

Software- A software firewall can come as a stand alone program, built into OS, or within anti-virus software! A software firewall will protect the machine that is on from unwanted access

Hardware- A hardware firewall is effectively your router acting as a firewall, although not all router will have this function, the main advantage of a hardware firewall is that if you have a network within your house, the computer will act as a firewall for all computers connected to the network, which save the hassle of having to have numerous firewall running to protect the machines when the router can protect all..