"I don't use anti-virus and i've not had any problems ......."

Sin_Chase · 24 Sep 2010 at 15:44

stoofa said:
Sorry but no.
I run NOD32 at home.
This is on my i7-950/12GB machine.
The overhead from my AV software is nothing and I mean nothing.
I can run any number of benchmarks, tests with both the AV switched on and switched off and my scores will be the same.

At work and on my wifes machine we run Sophos and the same is true.
There is no drop in performance on my wifes machine.

Now I haven't tested every single machine at work running Sophos - but I'm pretty sure that if there was a performance issue some of my users would be telling me by now.

I stick by my statement - there is next to no overhead from resident AV these days.

Also - what exactly was the point of linking to an article 3 and a half years old??
I also fully question their results - 177% disk increase....umm......no.

Going by that post you are what, a junior admin? AV has a clear and distinct impact on many aspects of a systems performance.

stoneman · 24 Sep 2010 at 15:48

since i got infected 2 years ago been clean ever since ,only through reading on a very good security forum "wilders security". some very clever people on there as im sure there are here but in a different field.

mrk · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:02

Sin_Chase said:
Going by that post you are what, a junior admin? AV has a clear and distinct impact on many aspects of a systems performance.

Depends on the AV engine and the system spec itself. At work we have many older Pentium 3 machines and Celerys and these can struggle with cpu/disk intensive tasks from Kaspersky but at home none of my primary machines have issues with performance running AV

Fire Wizard · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:08

I'm not a huge fan of anti-virus software myself and personally don't run anything on my own system. I prefer to use the functionality already built into Windows, namely standard user accounts used in conjunction with a white-listing type approach i.e. Applocker, neither of which impact the performance of my system one little bit and provide a very nice form of security.

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:08

I always considered myself pretty savvy to not get a virus until I did...

I was after a codec pack and downloaded from what looked a pretty safe site. It wasn't as I ended up with a trojan. Maybe the site had been hacked and didn't even know the trojan had been embedded, who knows.

Certainly makes me think now every time I get the "are you sure" install message. So now I tend to unzip/extract/install on a dummy PC that I just use for that kind of stuff then when I am happy its not upto anything nasty I move to my main PC.
I only use my main PC for anything sensitive, and this way can risk extracts etc as I know if there is anything nasty I should detect it and if its not easy to remove I will just do a format and rebuild windows. Not found anything yet but you never know tbh.
Proper sites can and do get hacked so you never can say 100% that that download you just got is 100% safe.

Westyfield2 · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:11

EdwardTeach said:
If you are running windows 7 is it still advisable not to use an administrator account?

It's still best practice not to use an administrator account. But I do anyway

.

UAC + decent AV (NOD32 in my case) + common sense = You'll be fine.

Sin_Chase · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:35

Khaaan! said:
Depends on the AV engine and the system spec itself. At work we have many older Pentium 3 machines and Celerys and these can struggle with cpu/disk intensive tasks from Kaspersky but at home none of my primary machines have issues with performance running AV

My issue with AV is it's not overhead free and provides no realtime protection to 0-day threats. It's all re-active. So what is the point? Run regular scans and job done. For complete numpties it's worth it, but then they probably have 10x as much processing power as they need so it makes no odds.

In the business world you have no choice really. Windows platforms need AV. Corporate solutions are at times terrible also, I could name plenty. Suffice to say I have rolled out quick, new and modern machines with C2Ds and watched them slow down significantly the second AV hits them.

AV is not free. There is an overhead, there always will be with a software solution.

rexehuk · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:39

Westyfield2 said:
+ common sense

In before the "where can I find this" is asked.

I run:

MSE active
MWB - Installed for scans
Ad-Aware - Installed for Scans
NOD32 - Installed for scans
Spyware S&D - Installed for scans

You really need to trick me to get past my security. I usually settle for MSE + MWB for scanning, then final upload to http://virusscan.jotti.org/en-gb (bookmark this!) to verify it's clean if it's under 20MB in size.

AbsenceJam · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:42

If using a standard user account do you ever need to actually login as an administrator to do anything or can it all be done by elevation and typing in an administrator accounts password?

Mr Krugga · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:47

Mp4 said:
Win7 in admin mode/login - why is an admin login bad? isnt Win7 secure enough?

Nod32 - always scaning
Malwarebytes - paid - Scaning in background
Windows firewall
Router firewall
Ccleaner
S&D
Windows defender

I just let these do their job and load S&D / Ccleaner when i feel that the pc needs a clean

If people come to me with virus issues i always bung on MSE / Malwarebytes and say it would be better in the long term to get a dedicated anti-virus such as Nod32/Kaspersky

I use exactly the same combo, works a treat and isn't a performance-hit hog in the long run. Malwarebytes not running in the background though, same with S&D. All unnecessary background processes disabled though I prefer to have Nod32 with real-time active protection. CCleaner every other day, Malwarebytes every week. Haven't run Search&Destroy in ages, it wasn't helpful though. HijackThis if any problems occur to check the entries.

Westyfield2 · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:49

Sin_Chase said:
Suffice to say I have rolled out quick, new and modern machines with C2Ds and watched them slow down significantly the second AV hits them.

I always liked to have a play around on new PCs with the standard Dell installation and see how quick they are.

Then re-image it from our deployment, with all our corporate ****, login scripts, SEP, Guardian Edge, etc. Was rather depressing to then use the same machine! Slowed it right down

.

stoneman · 24 Sep 2010 at 16:54

if you just require something for safe browsing and 0 day viruses with very little impact i can highly recommend the free version of http://www.sandboxie.com/. im starting to sound like a salesman now,lol

Fire Wizard · 24 Sep 2010 at 17:26

AbsenceJam said:
If using a standard user account do you ever need to actually login as an administrator to do anything or can it all be done by elevation and typing in an administrator accounts password?

Every administrative operation I have performed on my own system can be executed from a standard user account. Depending on the operation though, you may need to manually ask for administrator privileges due to running as a true standard user, as opposed to an administrator user.

Where you might want to switch to an administrator account to perform administrative operations is going to depend on whether or not you're willing to sacrifice a bit of convenience for an added bit of security, which is obviously going to be entirely up to you since everyone is different when it comes to the trade off between security and convenience.

quackers · 24 Sep 2010 at 22:14

what people think of microsoft essentials v spybot/malwarebytes/spywareblaster etc?

mrk · 24 Sep 2010 at 22:19

Erm MSE is a resident AV package, the latter are specialised on demand scanners, one should still run the latter on a regular basis because they can and do find stuff AV packages miss and when they don't it's good practice anyway.

quackers · 24 Sep 2010 at 22:55

ah righty, I didn't know that. I wonder if it's any better then avg with the specialised on demand scanners as you said

mrk · 24 Sep 2010 at 23:01

It's a good piece of software but does have its bugs that only a certain type of user will see (you'll know if you're one of them though).

Thekwango · 13 Oct 2010 at 19:08

sorry for the thread revival but.........

i'm running mcafee and i noticed that there are a lot of processes running in task manager that are related to mcafee, so i guess i'm right in saying that these will naturally be slowing my machine down to some degree or other? now considering that i'm totally illiterate when it comes to AV protection, i take it i'm safer just suffering this slow down and allowing mcafee to run and do it's thing?? i also do a fortnightly scan with malwarebytes. is there anything else i should be doing/running that will help keep my pc relatively safe?

Ratbag · 13 Oct 2010 at 21:47

Mcafee is total crud - for a long while they were going toe-to-toe with norton to see who could make the most bloated AV. Believe it or not, Mcafee won out.

Mobius 1 · 13 Oct 2010 at 21:53

when using windows i've never used anti virus and have had zero problems. the only time i got a problem was when i was using a USB broadband modem, instead of a router with a built in firewall. (malwarebytes is all you need to be fair)

now on linux btw.

if firefox pops up with anything that doesn't look right, just click the red X in the top right corner. people who go and click the links/banners that claim there pc needs a registry fix are the people which are targeted by such scams/viruses.