It's one of the curious facts about today's computer users. They have lack of thorough knowledge of the risks their computers and so their valuable data are under. It is not surprising that virus protection tips are now needed more than ever.
Many people, especially the younger users treat the computer like the TV. Though television is changing too, right now both appliances are like different species. The one big difference is that malicious invisible outsiders can make a computer perform tasks that the user is largely unaware of.
So to surf the Web like you might switch channels on TV is very dangerous. It's very difficult for the average TV to be "infected" by malicious software. This is mainly because compared to a computer a TV is dumb as a brick.
The first rule of protection is "be sensible". You're not likely to get infected by accessing your bank's website, or a big name store. It's not impossible, but very unlikely. But visiting sites you really known nothing about is risky.
Similarly, never open an email attachment from someone you don't know. Or even if you do recognise the email address, but the email looks suspicious and was unexpected, tread warily.
This all applies assuming you have erected the first line of defence. You must have good antivirus and firewall software. It must be kept up to date and it must be active. It's like your front door. Leave it open by mistake, even once, and the entire contents of you house could disappear.
Finally, since they tend to be somewhat reckless, and don't really understand the risks, don't give kids free access to a computer. Apart from the obvious moral risks, they will not be careful about which sites to visit. They will not be vigilant of strange emails. Until you have given them sound virus protection tips again and again, watch what they are up to intently. I personally managed to clean up my PC with a powerful spyware and virus cleaning software which you can find out more about at my website link below.
