Were viruses around on Earth before living cells emerged?

How life on Earth started has puzzled scientists for a long time. And it still does.
Fossils provide very important evidence about the evolution of plants and animals. Unfortunately, there are very few fossils of ancient microbes available, so scientists rely on modern microbes to devise theories about how life started. I studied bacteria and another type of microbe called archaea from hot environments for many years to learn how they might have evolved on early Earth, but I still have so many unanswered questions.
Based on the fossil evidence we have, single-celled microbes appeared on Earth before larger cellular life like plants and animals. But which kinds of microbes were the very first kind of life?
Were viruses around on Earth before living cells emerged? A microbiologist explains