There are few things I can think of that are more important in these troubled Internet times than keeping your anti-virus software up to date. Unless, of course, you don't HAVE anti-virus software in which case you are probably really in a pickle right now. Sure, you can always go out and buy the software, but the problem is getting rid of the viruses you probably already have. Many modern viruses inhibit the installation of the popular anti-virus software products.
Most of the popular anti-virus products provide a way of automatically updating online, if you have a high speed Internet connection such as DSL or Road Runner. It will still work if you have a dial-up but it may be too slow for you to stay on. But there are some issues with automatic updating that you should be aware of.
First of all, the automatic updating facility of your software should run periodically during the day. Depending on the software vendor, you may be able to look in the Control Panel / Scheduled Tasks window to see if the update program has run recently. Another way to tell is to manually download the updates - if you find that there is always an update pending, your automatic update may not be working.
But even if it is working, the automatic update facility may not be able to download all the updates available. I don't want to get too technical here, but there may be program updates to the anti-virus program itself that may not be able to be automatically installed. So, to get around that problem you should do a manual update check once a week. A good time to do that is when you run your spyware or adware detection program, such as AdAware or SpyBot.
But there is a bigger issue, one that I am seeing very frequently lately at my clients. I go to a client's home or office and see that their anti-virus software is the 2002 version or earlier. When I inquire about whether they updated their software recently, the reply is that they updated online. Updating online is usually NOT the same as buying a new copy of the program each year. All the online update gets you is the rights to download the latest virus definitions (and perhaps bug fixes) for another year. You do not get the features that the newer software version has. That is why the program window still shows, for example, 2002 instead of 2004.
An example: The newer versions of Norton Anti-Virus not only check incoming email for viruses, but they check outgoing email also. This will prevent you from spreading a virus that might be undetected otherwise. The older versions of the program do not have this feature. Even if you updated online, the program itself will not updated to perform that function.
So, I recommend that you go out and buy the latest version of the anti-virus software each year. There are usually rebates that you can get which will make the upgrade price more palatable. If you don't want to do this every year, I would not go any more than two years old, but be sure to update the online subscription in the "off" years. You can also download the full version online, but I have often seen that you can get better prices locally.
And, while we are on the subject, make sure you anti-virus full disk check runs daily. Once a week is not enough.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).