Now that most people use the internet these days, it is a very good idea to make sure that you have good quality computer security software installed and protecting your computer. Anti virus software, anti spyware software and having a hardware or software firewall are now essential for everyone using a computer and here is an explanation why this is so.

Anti Virus software protects your computer from virus threats that can contaminate your computer and can slow down your computer, damage your files or even damage your computers hard drive requiring you to reformat your hard drive and needing to reinstall your operating system in order to get things back to normal. So as you can see anti virus software is an essential thing to have if you want to keep your computer healthy and free from viruses.

It is not enough just to install the anti virus software however, you will also need to keep it up to date in order to protect your computer from new anti virus threats, fortunately this is easy to do as most anti virus software programs let you update their anti virus files over the internet.

So what is anti spyware software exactly? Well anti spyware software is another kind of security program which protects your computer against all kinds of undesirables, such as spyware, keystroke loggers, malware, tracking cookies, dialers, trojans and unwanted commercial software. All of these things should be removed from your computer so that your computer security is not compromised. A good quality antispyware software program will protect your identity from unscrupulous people, hackers and fraudsters so that you can have peace of mind.

A computer firewall is either a software program or a hardware device which only allows authorised users to access your computer system and stops all unauthorized users from gaining access to your computer through the internet or a network. So a firewall stops malicious users from accessing your system and this is absolutely essential if you use the internet, especially if you have an always on broadband connection on your computer.

So which is better to have a software firewall or a hardware firewall? Well a software firewall will give you good firewall protection, but the absolute best firewall to have is a hardware one because this is even harder to get past for a malicious user.

So in summary, if you do not already have an antivirus program, an anti spyware program and a firewall, then you really should look into getting these things as they will save you a lot of hassle and worry in the future.