Probably stupid noob question, what to do with infected files

But I can’t really find an answer. What do I do when a virus, malware, etc is found? delete it? Repair it? move to chest (quarantiene, etc)? Right now everything goes to the chest, but is it better or worse to do something else?
Thanks for any insight!

G’day lcw731 welcome to Avast forum :slight_smile:

When you get a virus after doing a full scan it’s a lot safer to keep them in the chest (quarantine) cause sometime Avast might not be able to repair the file, when you keep them in a chest that contain a virus sometime a file inside the chest may turn false positive later and it easier to restore them back.

I keep them in a chest for at least 10 days to make sure if they are a real virus so I can delete them from the chest just to make sure their not false positive.

You have the right of it. Quarantine is the best option because 1: If its a critical part of the system that is infected, and moving it renders the system inoperable in some way, you can easily restore it from safe mode or such, and 2: False positives are always a possibility, moving to chest and waiting to see if it is a false detection is the best way to prevent inadvertent damage it may cause.

Delete should always be last option, and repair is a very optimistic feature that will fail or damage the file it tries to repair more often than it succeeds.

Clean, Quarantine, or Delete?
http://antivirus.about.com/b/2007/03/11/clean-quarantine-or-delete.htm

Thanks for your answers. I have wndered that for a long time, but never really knew where to look. I appreciate it!