Did anti-virus software come with your computer? Simple question. The most likely answer is "yes." When you bought your computer there's a good chance it had an evaluation copy of some anti-virus software, perhaps Norton Anti-Virus or McAfee Anti-Virus. If you own a Mac, you probably received Norton or Virex. So you were protected for a while. But, here's a better question…

Have you kept your subscription up to date? Many of us fail to maintain our subscription to the anti-virus software that we got in the beginning. Why? Sometimes, the evaluation period runs out and we don't buy the software. Sometimes, we buy the software, then forget to renew our subscription. With out-of-date virus definitions, our data can easily fall prey to newer viruses.

If your virus software has expired or your virus definitions are out-of-date, you are running a risk of losing important data. I don't know how many times I have gotten calls from clients who have lost valuable files to a virus or a hard drive crash. I have to ask them if they had the data backed-up and they almost invariably say no.

We are not going to discuss back-up today, but not backing up your files is like pulling the pin on a hand grenade, sitting on it and trying not to wiggle. Sooner or later, you're going to scratch your nose and… BOOM!!!!! It's raining s**t and you don't have an umbrella. It ain't a matter of "if," it's a matter of "when."

Same thing with virus protection. Emails, files from friends, files from enemies, files from North Korea for all you know! Think of your computer as a person who will have sex with every one he meets - the Internet. Now think of anti-virus software as a condom. Get it? Don't send your poor, little computer out onto that cold, unfeeling world without it.

Now, I love security and I love the warm, fuzzy feeling I get from knowing that Mr. ScumballVirusGuy is one step behind my anti-virus prophylactic. But I also like the word "FREE." So I've been looking into no-cost anti virus software and I've come up with a pair of goodies that should satisfy your needs whether you pray towards Redmond or Cupertino.

For you Windows users, there is AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, by Grisoft. Download it, install it and it guides you through the process of scanning your computer for anything that might already be lurking under a binary rock. It checks for updates every day and lets you know it has succeeded. AVG also has Pro and Internet Security versions that are not free, but offer more features. They also make AVG ANti-Spyware Free Edition. Version 7.5 is Vista compatible.

If you are a Mac devoteé, there is ClamXav. ClamXav is a port of ClamAV, which will also run under OS X, but only from the command line. ClamXav is ClamAV with a Mac graphical front-end, perfect for users who don't want to deal with Terminal and the inner workings of OS X. ClamXav is Universal and runs on 10.3 and 10.4 on PPC Macs and 10.4 on Intel Macs.

Quoting from the ClamXav website, "Don't forget, if you run VirtualPC you can still become infected and lose valuable data on your Mac even though technically you're running Windows inside a sandbox. VPC will run any application you tell it to, virus or no virus, it doesn't know the difference. You can protect yourself slightly by not using VPC's "shared folders", but that's a useful feature which you shouldn't have to be without."

If you are using expired anti-virus software or virus definitions - or no anti-virus protection at all, download one of these products today before you catch something that penicillin won't help.