Anti-virus software is a program or set of programs that are designed to prevent, search for, detect, and remove software viruses, and other malicious software like worms, trojans, adware, and more.
These tools are critical for users to have installed and up-to-date because a computer without anti-virus software installed will be infected within minutes of connecting to the internet. The bombardment is constant, with anti-virus companies update their detection tools constantly to deal with the more than 60,000 new pieces of malware created daily.