Can just visiting a website cause a virus or malware on your system?

OnlyAlex · 30 Sep 2023 at 10:51

DarrenM343 said:
No . Keeping Windows, browsers and other software up to date should suffice.

Thank you.

marno17 · 14 Oct 2023 at 09:10

On the back of this discussion is it a must these days to have antivirus software alongside windows security?
I do have Norton and I have performed a clean install but I don't want to unnecessarily slow my pc down if not needed?

OnlyAlex · 14 Oct 2023 at 15:34

marno17 said:
On the back of this discussion is it a must these days to have antivirus software alongside windows security?
I do have Norton and I have performed a clean install but I don't want to unnecessarily slow my pc down if not needed?

Good question, it really depends on who you ask and what you do on your PC and whether it has sensitive files on it. Most articles I’ve read recently state that Windows Security has improved leaps and bounds in recent years and does the job just fine. Other specialist antivirus are better and do offer more features, but if you have your files backed up, take little risks and update / scan regularly with Windows Security, then you should be okay. This is based on my experience at least!

leezer3 · 18 Oct 2023 at 16:18

A rule of thumb I tend to use for anything of this nature is that if you have to *ask* the question as to whether you can get rid of something, then you probably need whatever you're asking about.

However, I wouldn't be using Norton.

Blackjack Davy · 18 Oct 2023 at 16:39

OnlyAlex said:
Thank you, do I need to be concerned about the website even though looking online it’s been around for many years and my antivirus found no malware?

Its not the site as a rule if its a trusted etc its the fact that if the site has adverts they have no control over what the ad server delivers to you and if its been compromised you may get it trying to deliver malware in that case theres a popup warning from UAC about potentially malicious software attempting to download/install on your machine. In the case where I've seen they have a link to report any bad ads you may encounter so they can get it reported but its not ideal its one reason to use ad blockers in my experience

Pawnless Endgame said:
As other said, it shouldn't be a problem with modern browsers. Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari etc.

In the brief time that I was using MS IE though (2001), I visited someone's personal web page (Geocities, Angelfire, Tripod etc) and it was fairly slow and I thought it was downloading some banner ads. Then about a minute later, I had a prompt telling me to restart my PC. I ignored the prompt and realised that my mouse cursor has changed. Turns out the site did a drive-by installation of Comet Cursor. Spyware! Promptly removed.

Heh I remember those IE was notorious for it, browser addons they wereit got very tiresome remove one and something else would appear it was a constant battle I switched to Firefox for that very reason