Virus, malware and hacking are inter-related. The first one can devastate one program or your whole computer system. Viruses are commonly known for eradicating important files, putting your data at risk or needing a hard drive reformat to get the computer to work again.

Learning how to protect your PC or your laptop is quite important, but you will also need to understand what to protect them against and that’s exactly what we are going to explain here.

There exist more than 100,000 known computer viruses, which means a serious threat to your computer. However, only a small part of them live in the wild, so with this guide we will explain 10 common types of computer viruses and how the infect and affect your system.

10 common types of computer viruses

Overwrite Virus

At the very top of this list we find the overwrite virus. It doesn’t matter if your operating system is Macintosh, Linux, Windows or DOS, since this virus is quite effective on all of them. As you can imagine by its name, this virus deletes partially or totally the data and exchanges it the existing code with the malicious one.

Luckily, this virus can be easily detected because the program stops working, but it’s important for you to know that as soon as this virus infects the file, the data can’t be restored and it will be lost.

Boot Sector Virus

This is one of the most dangerous virus in the wild because its infection affects the master boot record, meaning that it’s not easy to remove, usually needing a full system reformat. This virus encrypts the computer’s boot sector, damaging the code. The more optimistic part of this virus is that the BIOS architecture of newer PC units have improved and reduced its effectiveness.

This virus can infect your PC through the use of removable media like USB or hard drives that have also been infected.

Direct Action Virus

This virus enters into the main memory quite fast and infects all projects, folders or files defined in Autoexec.bat path. After doing this, it deletes itself. The direct action virus can change its location on every execution, which makes it quite hard to diagnose. Even if it’s an annoying virus, it doesn’t affect your system’s performance, it only makes your files inaccessible.

To delete it you will only need a basic antivirus program.

Web Scripting Virus

This virus gets into the browser security, allowing hackers to inject client-side malicious scripting into the site page. Compared to other viruses, web scripting viruses are quite easy to spread and transmit themselves into your computer’s system through the programming used for websites and making you to download he virus without knowing when you click on malicious websites’ links or videos.

To prevent this kind of virus you will need to install a security program that detect malicious coding when browsing the Internet.

Memory Resident Virus

It is one of the most destructive virus because it infects your computer memory and sets it as its base of operations, making your operating system to help the virus. It’s stablished in the main memory (RAM) and starts working when you turn on your computer.

If you want to be well protected against this virus, you will need to install a high-quality advanced antivirus.

Companion Virus

It was most famous during the MS-DOS time. It works by making a duplicate of a file with an alternate extension that runs alongside the real program. Also, when the system calls the original file, the duplicated extension will run before the original one. This way, the Companion Virus affects your system’s performance by deleting the files.

About how to protect yourself against this virus, you will also need to install a high-quality advanced antivirus and also not to download attachments from unknown email sources.

Macro Virus

A Macro Virus, as you can imagine by its name, gets written in the macro language and runs automatically when the file gets opened. It spreads quite easily to different files. This kind of virus are generally received via emails.

If you want to protect you PC against this virus, you should disable macros and delete emails from unknown sources without opening them.

Multipartite Virus

This virus remains in the memory and affects the hard disk, infecting and propagating itself in many ways and affecting mainly the operating system of your computer. The way to know if your computer is affected by this virus is to observe performance slack and the low availability of virtual memory for client applications.

To prevent this virus, clean the disk and the boot sector and, of course, like with many others viruses, install a high-quality advanced antivirus program.

Polymorphic Virus

Very hard to detect thanks to its ability to encrypt and change its coding whenever it infects a system. The best way to protect your computer against this king of adaptive coding is to install a high-quality advanced antivirus program, the only ones able to deal with a wider range of threats like this one.

FAT virus

This kind of viruses ruin your entire file allocation system, the place where exist the information about files and where to find them. FAT virus will destroy files and entire directories, so get sure to be well protected against them, again, with the installation of a high-quality antivirus.

Many of us are quite addicted to video games and spend a lot of time enjoying them. Not for nothing, video games are spectacularly popular no matter your age. Being like this, it doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that there are many stories behind some of the most popular video games and even if you have a great knowledge of a game, you will get surprise when you learn of the fun facts we are going to explain next.

Here you have 15 fun facts that will give you a biggest appreciation of some of the greatest video games hits.

Mario Bros was not originally Mario nor a plumber

Mario, the main character of the biggest series of all time, made his first appearance in the game Donkey Kong. His appearance in Doneky Kong was such a blast that they created him with a whole entity. He was originally known as Jumpman, but the Nintendo’s US office workers were interrupted by their landlord, Mario Segale, and so they christened the character after him. Also, he hasn’t always been a plumber, since he started as a carpenter and even a doctor. Switching professions was a must for this endearing character.

Mario Bros doesn’t hit the bricks with its head

Contrary to what many people think, Mario doesn’t hit the bricks he breaks with his head, but with his fist. You will need to look closely, but if you do, you will see that he jumps with this fist and punches the bricks.

Pacman’s pizza inspiration is only half true

It’s always been told, as you may have also heard, that Toru Iwatani –the creator- was eating a pizza when he got the idea for the game. The myth says he looked down and the pizza with a missing slice and used this image as inspiration for Pacman’s shape. However, Iwatani himself explained that the legend was only half true. He said that in Japanese the character for mouth [kuchi] has a square shape and, even if it’s not circular like the pizza, he decided to round it up.

Pacman has a maximum score you can get

Pacman has a maximum score, also known as the perfect score, which is 3,333,360 points. The first person to ever get this score was Billy Mitchell in 1999 after playing the game for almost 6 hours. This made him won the World Record Guiness, and he also holds the World Record Guiness for mastering Donkey Kong.

PlayStation was almost a Nintendo console

Sony was originally chosen to design the electronic components of Nintendo, but Nintendo ended up ditching the project. Sony, nonetheless, decided to make a console anyway and that’s the reason the PlayStation 1 came out.

You probably can’t press a controller button more than 16 times per second

Toshuyuki Takahashi, a Japanese gamer, holds the record o pressing a controller button 16 times in a second. Do you think you can improve his mark? Go prove yourself!

You can fish in Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue Gyms

If you still have the original Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue games, you can turn them on and fish for Pokémon inside the many Rhydon statues of the Gyms. Even if it’s true that you won’t find any particularly rare Pokémon, it’s quite a novelty to caught a Pokémon inside a Gym!

The first console with internal storage was SEGA Saturn

SEGA Saturn was the first console with internal storage ever launched to the market. It was launched in 1994 in anticipation of Sony’s PlayStation and sold 170,000 machines on the very first day. Players could save 5 or even 6 games on the system’s RAM, which meant 32 kilobytes.

Aerith and Sephiroth from siblings to lovers

In Final Fantasy VII Aerith and Sephiroth’s backstory is loosely intertwined, but it wasn’t always like that. The first draft included an emotional bond between them, as if they were siblings. However, their relationship took a romantic turn, becaming lovers because, yes, Sephiroth was Zack.

World of Warcraft helped as a plague predictor

In 2005 a new character was released, a bad guy named Hakkar, who controlled a dungeon and could cast a spell with a contagious disease that affected anyone who challenged him. But the disease started to spread among players and some of them even died. Researchers studied how players helped or inhibited the spread of the disease and those epidemiologists use that data to try to create models in order to stop the spread of today’s diseases.

Chun-Li and girl power

Street Fighter II introduced one of the firsts playable female characters: Chun-Li. She soon became one of the most popular characters in the game and one of the most valuables ones, since her speed made her one of the best characters in the Street Fighter saga.

Record for worst video game dialogue

Even if Resident Evil is one of the most successful video game franchises in history and counts with dozens of sequels, movies, books, toys, etc., the truth is that it also holds one of those awards no one wants to win: the record for worst video game dialogue.

Sonic the Hedgehog was born thanks to Mario Bros

Yuji Naka, creator of Sonic, had the habit of playing non-stop the first stage of Super Mario Bros as fast as possible. By making this, Naka started to think about how it would be if there existed an entire game which focused on completing levels quick and fast. Eventually, this idea turned into Sonic.

The myth of finding Mew in Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow

One of the biggest legends of all popular games is finding Mew in Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow. This video games came out when the Internet was not a widespread, so people only had another people as source of information and the word spread quite easily. Being like this, rumors and just lies about catching Mew could spread fast. But the truth is that there is a way to obtain this Pokémon without cheating or hacking the game. If you take advantage of a glitch in how the games store their Trainer and Pokémon information, players can trigger a legitimate fight with Mew who, like any other Pokémon, can be weakened and caught.

The original Street Fight was unplayable

This first game in the series was almost unplayable. Trying to perform any of the character’s unique special moves was impossible and even moving around the screen was difficult, making the game not fun to play.

Poker nowadays is one of the most played card games in the world, if not the most popular among the thousands of card games out there. For people that are trying to join this wagon however, it’s not very easy to choose a Poker variant, as there are so many types of Poker out there that it makes it very hard to choose which one is the perfect Poker variant for you.

Look no further, because in this simple guide you will learn all you need to know about the main poker variants and we’ll show you which poker games actually use them. At the end if you wish to put this new knowledge to the test, we recommend you to check Easypppoker, where you’ll find the best places to play poker online.

The three main poker variants

Most (if not all) types of poker can be identified as a modified version of one of these 3 variants:

• Draw poker.
• Stud poker.
• Community card poker.

No matter which country you’re reading this guide, you can easily identify which variant each type of poker fits in comparing it to these three. Every poker game has each set of rules, but they will always be a interpretation of one of the three variants but with a few twists and new rules.

Draw poker

The most common variant and perhaps easiest to learn how to play, this variant is slowly declining it’s popularity thanks to the rise of more demanded types of poker that do not fit in this category. Draw poker main rule, as the name implies, is to draw a certain amount of cards and try to form your poker hard. Usually you’ll also be able to discard and replace cards to improve your hand.

The most popular example of a poker game that is considered a draw poker variant is Five-card Draw (or Cantrell Draw). In Five-card Draw, each player gets 5 cards and in a “Draw” phase they can discard any of the cards to get replacements (ending the “Draw” turn always with 5 cards). At the end of that draw, the “Showdown” happens, where the remaining players compare their hands.

Stud poker

Our second main variant, there are two significant differences between Stud poker and Draw poker: Usually you won’t draw all cards at once, instead a certain amount of cards are drawn, mixed with face-up and face-down cards. No cards can be discarded, while you’re getting new cards, new betting rounds begins. Because of the face-up cards being visible for every player on the table, this offers a new layer of strategy, as you’re betting having a slight idea of what the opponent’s hands might contain.

A popular stud poker game is Five-card Stud. In this version you get 2 cards at the beginning, this first one is face-down and the second is face-up. After the betting phase ends, a new card is drawn face-up and so on, until each player has 5 cards: 2 face-down (the first and fifth card) and 3 face-up.

Community card poker

For last but not least, the third and final variant is community card poker. It’s very easy to compare community card with stud, which the main difference being the face-up cards are put on the table and shared by every player. Each player will have a incomplete set amout of cards in hand and they will try to match poker hands.

The most popular type of poker based on comunity card poker and perhaps the currently most popular in the world is Texas hold ‘em. In this version, each player is dealt 2 cards and a betting phase begins. After that, “the Flop” is shown (the first 3 cards on the table) and a new betting phase starts. This repeats two more times with “the Turn” (fourth card) and “the River” (fifth card).

If you play poker at online cash games sites, you’ve likely heard of those high-profile attackers targeting players using malicious software in order to hijack people who play online poker. Between the ideal targets of this hackers are poker pros, especially since they have considerable balances in their poker accounts with hundreds or thousands of dollars or another currency. Because of their healthiness, pros are an attractive target in this industry.

Thinking that your personal information can be public online it’s scary, making people to wonder if it’s safe to play poker online. Along this text, we will give you the keys you must always consider to stay safe while playing online poker and to ward off cybercriminals.

If you’re new to web design, the large amount of options in terms of hostings can be so overwhelming. Also if you’re new to this, you need to actually choose a hosting that works with a control panel that is intuitive for you as a “newbie” to this. Thankfully, nowadays there are so many hostings with also so many panels that surely there is something perfect for you and your projects.

You may have a great team of developers, designers and all kinds of professionals in order to make the most ambitious projects ever, but without the ability or capacity to manage all personnel, it’s bound to fail. As in any team sports, a team without someone in charge or / and with the propor tools and knowledge to do so will never succeed. The same happens in business model, and in the game development industry is no different.

The dream is there for most people that enjoy games: build their own. While becoming a game developer is a great decision, there are several steps needed to take into account before diving in the world of making games. We will sum some of the most important steps in order to become a game developer.

Many of us dream to develop our own game. We have a great idea, the necessary knowledge and know exactly how to start. However, depending on how ambitious is our project, we may need some funding, and the amount really depends of how much we want to invest.

To help you particularly in this part of any game project, we’ll show you many options on how to get the funds you need to fulfill your dream.

Every now and then we heard of new game genres showing up on the market and suddenly dozens and dozens of games show up following the trend, since that’s what people look for. But there is a genre that never gets old, and there’s always a market for: casino games.

Be it with real money or fictitious coins, casino games very popular, doesn’t matter which platform we’re talking about, there is always people looking for them. Inside this games category we can find card games like Poker or Blackjack, roulettes, slot machines, etc.

Nowadays we don’t need to go to a casino in order to play such games, even if you want to bet real money. There are several websites that offer such games, or even through your Android or Apple device you can find on their respective stores so many casino games, which really shows how popular these games really are.

For example, on StarGames you can find several casino games, being one of them their famous slots game, Book of Ra. Playing these slots games on the internet is no different as playing video slots on any casino. And just like this game, you can find so many more games that try to take a slice of the casino games market.

As it’s not always possible for everyone to go to a casino, playing casino games through your computer, tablet or phone is a great way to have fun and actually have a chance to make some real money while at home, work or anywhere else really. Even the ones that simply use fake money are very popular since while you don’t win or lose real money, you can still have fun while playing them. The big amount of variety of casino games makes it easy to reach almost any kind of player of any age.

Being a developer, a gamer or just a casual user that wants to access the Internet, sometimes we have the necessity to connect to a non-private Wi-Fi connection. Everyone has already heard about the dangers of surfing on public Wi-Fi networks, but sometimes it’s just impossible to avoid it.

To help you increasing your odds of being safe while using such networks, we’re going to show you some quick tips that will surely help you and might just save your life.

Navigate only on HTTPS encrypted sites

If you really need to use personal / sensitive credentials, you should look forward to only connect to websites that are HTTPS encrypted. They can be identified by having this prefix on the URL bar. These sites usually do a great job protecting your from any hackers that could be connected to the same network.

Select Wi-Fi networks manually

Our phones, tablets and PCs have this nifty option to automatically connect to certain networks when they are available. If you’re not currently using a public Wi-Fi, you shouldn’t allow your device to automatically connect to it.

Use different tools to protect yourself

You have several security tools that protect your against hackers even when you are connected on a public network. Another related suggestion is to use a VPN network, especially if you really need to connect frequently, as some of these can almost 100% protect you from any kind of attacks.

Connect only to password protected networks

A open Wi-Fi network can be accessed by anyone in the area, which increases the chance of having bad intentioned people connecting to such network as well. If you connect to a password protected Wi-Fi, that means not everyone will have the credentials to connect, lowering the chances of being hacked.

If the public Wi-Fi owner also changes the password regularly, that makes this network even safer. Remember that if people know how to hack wifi, they will still be able to use that network anyway.

Use two-steps login protection

The two-steps login is basically a very safe mechanism to protect your accounts. Everyday more and more services include such security measures (such as Facebook and Google, for example). When you put your credentials (first step), the second step is that if the app / site you’re not using the same site / app / IP as usual, it will send you a code to your phone. This makes it so even if someone knows your password, they  need to have  physical access to your phone in order to use your accounts.