i'm just curious what these programs look for to i dentify a virus, trojan, spyware, etc. i've heard that viruses are identified by strains or something but i really dont know what that is in terms of a computer virus. i guess trojan and spyware scanners have to scan differently, but i'd like to find out how they work. also, how does av handle the virus once it's been found without deleting the file that it's attached to? that kind of stuff. if somebody could point me towards a good tut about this stuff, id appreciate it, i couldnt find anything good on google(lots of stuff about biological viruses and very vague articles written by individual av companies).