Poll: *** The All New Windows AV Thread - Keep All AV Questions in Here ***

What AV do you use?

  • Total voters
    812
linktoinsanity said:
I also find it ironic when someone says "I haven't used an antivirus for 2 years and have never had a problem." Not all viruses throw up a message telling you that they are on the computer, in fact zombie viruses and key loggers are in their best interests to never let you know they are there. The only PCs where it MAY make sense not to run an antivirus are ones only ever used for gaming, which don't even get used for web-browsing or financial transactions and/or PCs that don't use an internet connection.
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Your irony is flawed. As stated I use an on-demand scanner on rare occurrences. Why would its BitDefender based definitions keep me any more in the dark than your real-time av, when it comes to my 2 years clearance stamp of being av/free? Taking your logic, no-one really ever knows how free/clean they are.

Security choices are a personal preference based on many differing factors. I would never be so condescending and obtuse to tell people what they should or shouldn't do for security. I simply gave light to an option that I use and to date has been proven to work.

There are far more options for security that circumnavigate the requirement for a real-time a/v. Fact. Its personal knowledge, awareness and choice as to which one's you choose to use and implement.

Enjoy wearing your app manufactured tin foil hat if it makes you feel safer. But don't tell me to wear one too. Just as I in return do not tell you to take yours off.
 
KingDazza said:
Your irony is flawed. As stated I use an on-demand scanner on rare occurrences. Why would its BitDefender based definitions keep me any more in the dark than your real-time av, when it comes to my 2 years clearance stamp of being av/free? Taking your logic, no-one really ever knows how free/clean they are.

Security choices are a personal preference based on many differing factors. I would never be so condescending and obtuse to tell people what they should or shouldn't do for security. I simply gave light to an option that I use and to date has been proven to work.

There are far more options for security that circumnavigate the requirement for a real-time a/v. Fact. Its personal knowledge, awareness and choice as to which one's you choose to use and implement.

Enjoy wearing your app manufactured tin foil hat if it makes you feel safer. But don't tell me to wear one too. Just as I in return do not tell you to take yours off.
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Do what you like, I don't care about what you personally decide to do and if you are delicate enough to take offence to what I said then that's your problem not mine. I didn't see what you posted, I was arguing against the view in general, so I didn't read about you running online scans from time to time. But if you want to take it personally, be my guest.

Real-time AV is an extra barrier (like UAC and Malwarebytes for example), of course you are never going to be 100% safe in any situation. Having the sense not to click on dodgy looking links etc help as well as AV real time scans, online scans, Virus Total uploads and what have you. I will continue to run a real-time scanner however and advise others that they should too.

mrk said:
Still recommending BitDefender Free here.
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Yeah it's one I overlooked which is another good free alternative.
 
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I still stand by what I said. How do you know you've had no issues if you aren't running any kind of protection? And to actually respond to KingDazza's initial post, running the odd one-time scan, how often do you run it? And you do realise that standard websites can get compromised right? I hope you at least run Adblock...

I can see the argument for using a free Antivirus, but no antivirus? I hope none of those are IT Professionals who extend that to all their clients, otherwise all you are doing are risking their data. Not smart.

As for XP, at this point in time it's only been out of support for a few months, so there's no cause for panic, as long as you have other methods of protection, but I still wouldn't use it on a main system. If it's the same PC you run no protection on, well at least you don't do your banking on it + general browsing right? Otherwise you deserve whatever you get.
 
Actually I've often found its usually the IT professionals who don't use a real-time a/v. That doesn't mean they don't deploy one to the masses.

No-one is saying that you have to adopt our philosophy. But there are an ever increasing number of people who are aware that a/v real-time programs can cause more issues than not having them at all. The way you're flapping about the mere idea of security without a real-time a/v shows that option isn't for you. And that's fine. :)

I think its a shame that you're at the point of wishing we all get a virus or fall foul of identity theft just to prove we're all doomed and should have listened.

I think you need to consider just for a moment that security is possible without a real-time a/v.
 
no i'm not an IT professional and no i'd never recommend it to others. the last time i clean installed someone's pc and installed avast, it was still ****ed the very next day. :D

but what i do is right for me and i won't be convinced to change my mind. and yes, i browse pretty much anything and check my bank balance. it's rarely above 3p though... :p
 
KingDazza said:
I think its a shame that you're at the point of wishing we all get a virus or fall foul of identity theft just to prove we're all doomed and should have listened.
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I'm sorry if it came across like that, I don't wish one on those who don't have an A/V, I just think they (including you) are needlessly increasing the risk.

I think you need to consider just for a moment that security is possible without a real-time a/v.
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I know its possible, for example by using script blockers on browsers and using hardware firewalls etc, but an AV adds to this security.

marc2003 said:
no i'm not an IT professional and no i'd never recommend it to others. the last time i clean installed someone's pc and installed avast, it was still ****ed the very next day.
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Good. And lol, yeah an antivirus should not be looked on as a complete security blanket, more added security. The user still needs to be careful what they click on/run.

but what i do is right for me and i won't be convinced to change my mind. and yes, i browse pretty much anything and check my bank balance. it's rarely above 3p though...
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I wonder if it's only ever 3p because the hackers are clearing your account... :p

Personally I'd certainly not recommend running XP these days as a main machine, however you are right in that it's your choice at the end of the day.

I am interested in why you personally choose not to run an antivirus? Performance benefits? (as I've said already, very small these days unless you have an ancient computer) Issues with false positives? You are a virus writer/hacker? Other reasons?
 
linktoinsanity said:
How do you know you've had no issues if you aren't running any kind of protection
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AV is a false sense of security. User behaviour is the main cause of infection these days with one or two exceptions, such as Java, because Java still lacks auto-update. Giving a Windows box to an uneducated user is a recipe for disaster.
 
linktoinsanity said:
Personally I'd certainly not recommend running XP these days as a main machine, however you are right in that it's your choice at the end of the day.

I am interested in why you personally choose not to run an antivirus? Performance benefits? (as I've said already, very small these days unless you have an ancient computer) Issues with false positives?
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i'm running XP out of necessity. back in july i hit a real rocky patch money wise and sold my entire pc bar the hard drives. i now have access to a hunk of junk (that isn't mine) and it's only capable of running XP. it's an ancient single core athlon64 with 1GB of ram. the chipset/onboard graphics are so old and crap that you can't get drivers for vista/7. :o

performance isn't the reason for me not running an AV though. my own pcs in the past were more than capable. i suppose i just made my mind up early on that there was no point running them and i'm being stubborn about not changing my mind.

You are a virus writer/hacker?
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i wish. i'd have more than 3p in my account.
 
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I tried pretty much all the big industry respected security suites prior to giving up. And all of them had some quirk or issue that negatively impacted my PC experience. Just some of the top ones that come to mind:

  • Slower internet browsing
  • False positives
  • Slower explorer/folder access
  • App/game conflicts
  • Annual charge
  • Free but with adverts
  • Periodic install maintenance/updates/revision changes
  • No guarantee of protection
  • Uninstall left over traces/registry changes
  • Bugs - these can be minor to serious/major impact
  • Last but not least: Time and energy dealing/managing the above

Not one suite was fully free from all of the above that I tried. Some of the suites I tried with many being both paid and free versions:
Bitdefender, Norton, Avast, AVG, Avira, MSE, ESET, Kaspersky, Panda & Trend Micro. Reason for trying so many was due to above list.

At one point I did think I might have found a good solution with Webroot, but then found that I had unknowingly entered into an auto payment taking renewal scam. Also further down the road it caused a conflict/stutter in a game (was causing texture streaming stutter). It also after one update started scanning against the timetable I had set.

Anyway, for me it was time to educate myself to security alternatives and spent some time looking into alternative solutions.

Many, many people will keep on telling you, that you must have an a/v suite. At what point does the suite become worse than the malware its mean't to be protecting you from? (that's a rhetorical question btw, I already have my own conclusion :p )
 
Brett249 said:
MSE with Malwarebytes... had for a year with no problems at all. I used to use Norton but it was so sluggish but now I can update each database within a few seconds of turning my PC on.
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Same here - decided to ditch the additional free antivirus and pc runs much better and had not one virus .

People get fooled by the antivirus companies saying you need this. If you want a slower pc you need it.....
 
No not all free AV slows a machine down... BitDefender doesn't slow anything down and does better than mse in that it intercepts compromised websites. I've had it warn me before about sites that it found to contain malware whereas mse didn't a single time the 4 odd years I was using it. Not that any of those sites would have caused harm on my machine but knowing it's there on the rare chance to does is peace of mind.
 
tracertong said:
People get fooled by the antivirus companies saying you need this. If you want a slower pc you need it.....
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It totally depends on the end user. Typically if people stuck to using normal websites behind their NAT router there wouldn't be need for AV. Sadly this is rare so AV is there to protect them from themselves.
 
Swarfega said:
It totally depends on the end user. Typically if people stuck to using normal websites behind their NAT router there wouldn't be need for AV. Sadly this is rare so AV is there to protect them from themselves.
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Total myth. Legit websites are compromised on a daily basis.
 
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