What is the difference between the malware and a virus

[Stranger01]

I have come across various forums. I have seen various users talking about the virus and malware. I don't seem to understand they take the name of the malware as well as of the virus and it seems they have the same effect. When i tried searching the various websites for the difference i did not get the exact information needed. So i decided to ask with you people. hope you will be able to answer my query. So please do reply as soon as possible.

[Amie]

Well let me tell you that a virus is a program, while the malware is a software more specifically a malicious software. Malwares are known to create a duplication of itself. Trojans, viruses, dialers, adware, spyware are the name of the specific malwares software. While the viruses are those programs that use the particular malicious software to manipulate itself in the system. So hope you got the difference between the two.

[HiSpeed]

If you ask me then i would say that the virus is a subset of the malware. These days the term antivirus has become outdated and the most common term used today is the antimalware. Explaining you in the simple language i can say that a virus can be a malware but a malware cannot be a virus. A virus uses the software of the malware but a malware cannot use anything of the virus to manipulate itself. So hope you have got the exact difference.

[Stranger01]

Hey thanks a lot for your suggestion. You have finally cleared out with my confusion. I was thinking that both the virus and malware can be same but after reading this post i got some difference. However the destructive level of both of them are very high , this factor i think is the common factor. Your information was helpful. Anyways thanks a lot for your efforts that you have put in to solve my confusion.