What is an antivirus and what is its function 【best explanation】?

What is an antivirus? If you have arrived here, it is that perhaps you have a virus or malicious software, but first you have to know that computers basically have many dangers in their use, because they are highly sensitive components , susceptible to the acquisition of viruses and malwares.

That is why many users choose to download antivirus tools, however, if they do not know what these resources are about, all their information will be mentioned in detail below.

Index of contents

What is an antivirus?

An antivirus is an online resource that protects the computer from different threats existing in the system, such as viruses of any type and also malwares.

These programs basically work as a filter between the base computer and the rest of the digital world, such as the internet or input and output peripherals that can trigger viruses in the system.

However, these not only detect viruses, but also eliminate them depending on their location, and also perform protection settings throughout the system.

These mostly work with a link code, which establishes input limits to the computer, thus allowing the information of any type of data supplied on the PC to be known.

Despite this, these components do not manage this information, they only receive it, read it, detect dangerous changes and leave it in its starting place, that is, they basically function as a remote read component.

Antivirus classification

Likewise, these tools are divided into different sections depending on their specifications, among them we can mention:

According to your objective:

• Antispyware: These are entirely protective components, which basically eliminate the possibility of hackers from accessing the system, and are always found running in the background within the PC. Antispam: Most of them are managing emails or web applications, where they eliminate all kinds of spam messages (with doubtful origin) from the platform. Firewall: It acts as a wall between the device itself and the rest of the digital world, because it provides established limits from where they can detect and stop viruses that want to access the system. Antipop-us: Most antiviruses have them linked, and they also block access to pop-up windows on the computer, in order to suppress their execution and block the entry of malware. Antimalware: In general, antiviruses have this objective by default, since it detects components identified as malwares and deletes them before they become a major threat to the computer.

According to its function:

• Detectors: Whose only function is to carry out preventive analyzes, and quickly detect the existence of viruses or malwares to inform the user immediately. Heuristics: They are very famous on the web, what they do are run programs in the background simultaneously to detect the type of behavior that each one of them has. Eliminators: These work many times in conjunction with the detectors, since they simply search for the virus or computer worm and delete it with an established protection code. Immunizers: This type of antivirus generally comes with the computer disks, and they also detect and analyze possible failures in the execution of predetermined programs.

According to its category

• Traditional antivirus: It is one that is downloaded and installed on the computer, and provides real-time security to the system, since it is always in the background. Online antivirus: They are all those resources that are obtained through web pages that analyze and detect viruses in the system, but are not downloaded or installed on the PC.

General functions of antivirus

Despite the fact that we previously mentioned how antivirus is classified according to its function, there are certain specifications that all these tools present on a basic basis, among which we can mention:

Firewall / Firewall

In this case it is a type of protection, which generates a detailed reading of all the information provided to the device, in order to detect possible threats.

Placing it in a routine context, it is a simple wall that does not allow certain resources to pass to the computer, such as known malware or viruses so that they do not infect or slow down its operation.

Likewise, this firewall is positioned not only on input peripherals such as USB or disks, but also with any type of information obtained from the internet such as web pages or executed downloads.

Antiphishing and Antispam

Most antivirus have simple affiliations with the emails of computer users, and in it they have the functions of Antiphishing and Antispam.

Antispam is simply a type of firewall but oriented only to junk files, which are simply components that do not have any type of information other than advertising or unnecessary data.

And in the case of Antiphishing, it is a resource that eliminates and protects the user from dubious origins, that is, it suppresses and alerts the individual of false messages that are sent with subscriptions from other Gmail accounts.

Information optimization

Despite the fact that antivirus programs have the sole objective of taking care of possible infections to the computer system, they present the possibility of speeding up their operation.

They do this with the help of a resource known as “Optimization”, which eliminates unnecessary resource executions that are occurring in the background.

Which simply generate a greater weight in the operation of the PC and cause as a consequence that it slows down and tends to perform its actions more difficult.

Computer cleaning

This feature is one of the most used of antivirus, since it simply allows you to delete the junk files that are found in the system, also known as "Cache".

The latter are resources generated by failed or canceled processes in the computer, and which, when accumulated, also generate considerable weight on the web.

However, since the antivirus constantly cleans these resources thanks to the reading of “0 MB” codes, they are basically deleted when they are created.

File management

It is true that basically by allowing the antivirus to perform the cleaning and optimization action on the PC, it eliminates any threat it detects, regardless of whether it is in a predetermined file.

However, most of these tools allow you to manage the actions that will be carried out on these files, and in general they manage to quarantine or eliminate them completely as the user wishes.

How does an antivirus work?

The operation of an antivirus is very simple, it all starts when processes and information entries are run in the system, in this case, the content is thoroughly analyzed by the firewall.

This last component contains a virus dictionary, which can be extensive or basic depending on the configuration of the tool, and compares the entry codes with the information provided in said dictionary.

In case the antivirus detects a relationship, it proceeds to stop the virus and eliminate it completely with the help of the internal cleaner it has.

Also in the case of optimization and cleaning, the antivirus has a dictionary.

Only in this case it has codes specified for processes that run in the background (in the case of the optimizer) and those that have 0 MB of information (in the case of the cleaner).

Then, these are identified and together they are closed and eliminated, fulfilling the cycle of the tool as such.