what are people using these days for antivirus?

Soldato
Joined
1 May 2003
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11,099
I've never seen a home user on a modern OS hit. And frankly yes, if you don't take any sort of backups of your important data then that is just silly. What Im saying is having access to the very best AI based solutions which ive seen fail doesn't replace fully a traditional signature based solution. AI solutions are great but don't always work.

I agree with having backups, everyone needs them and not just for protecting against malicious objects as hardware does fail.

But they don't need to roll over and take it, there are other options than using signature based AV.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
30 Oct 2003
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Location
Essex
I agree with having backups, everyone needs them and not just for protecting against malicious objects as hardware does fail.

But they don't need to roll over and take it, there are other options than using signature based AV.

I'm using the market leader in AI based detection and have a dedicated appliance that scans every single packet of traffic on my network yet you won't take it from me that it's far from infallible on it's own and far to noisy until trained to be truly effective? :( I've spent the last several weeks in meetings looking at the very best players in this field and i'm not yet fully convinced that there is one single solution for network based AI detection and endpoint protection that is the full package when it comes to threat detection and response. We are not talking "normal people" money here either we are talking big investments into security running into 10's of thousands a year and its still not foolproof, because no system is or will ever be.

Genuinely id love to know what you use?
 
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V F

V F

Soldato
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13 Aug 2003
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UK
So when hit with 0-day, just restore from backup and carry on? what about the normal home user, just pay up then?

Never been hit with randomware or ransomware alike, which is why I don't use signature based AV.

I said before prevention is far easier than cure for businesses or home users.

Remember when some NHS departments coughed up the fees when they were hit on Windows 7 years ago? Then it happened again.
 
Associate
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Channel Islands
I still use MalwareBytes, although was fortunate in retrospect for them to honour the lifetime licence I bought (I think 7+ years ago?).

I can confirm it's noticeably better than Windows defender, but you can largely mitigate that by not sneaking around the darker corners of the internet.
Otherwise would probably not be happy to pay a monthly fee for antivirus over Windows Defender.
 
Soldato
OP
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30 Jul 2005
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Midlands
Iv noticed with defender you can download the eicar virus test file and extract it too but using something like nod32 it blocks the download straight away and flags it up.

Going onto the anti virus test sites that load up weblinks with virus tests defender doesnt catch anything abd loads the web pages up as normal where again nod32 content filters the browser and stops the site loading up.
Makes me wonder if defender really is up to the task.
Anyone else experiencing this with defender?
 

Ree

Ree

Associate
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been using norton for donkeys years with no viruses on any of our devices. it's such a small amount to pay (£15) for a year/10 devices.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Jul 2009
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Location
Manchester
Iv noticed with defender you can download the eicar virus test file and extract it too but using something like nod32 it blocks the download straight away and flags it up.

Going onto the anti virus test sites that load up weblinks with virus tests defender doesnt catch anything abd loads the web pages up as normal where again nod32 content filters the browser and stops the site loading up.
Makes me wonder if defender really is up to the task.
Anyone else experiencing this with defender?

I use NOD32 they offer loyalty discounts each year.
Never had a problem.
I’ve even used it to clean up infected HDD from other machines.
 

Ree

Ree

Associate
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what more does it do over defender?

off the top of my head vpn, parental controls, pass manager, dark web monitoring and cloud back up. dunno if av forgot anything.

edit: it installs on your phones and tablets.
 
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Associate
Joined
29 Oct 2019
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1,002
I use Kaspersky, consistently offers top tier protection year after year. It always gets discounted to under £20 for 10 devices during the holiday season so it's dirt cheap on a per device basis. Windows Defender is alright for most people, but as shown in the video posted earlier it lets a few too many things slip through the cracks, malware is constantly evolving and I don't mind paying for the best available. I also find that Windows Defender has a higher performance impact than Kaspersky.
 
Associate
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20 Aug 2020
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Location
South Wales
I still use Avast (paid for as the ads are annoying), been using it for many years on my own and family computers and haven't had any issues. I tend to keep my systems clean and up to date and I do a full system clone of my OS drive once a month as extremely little changes, so at least if I was too get locked out to ransomware I'll be back up and running in minutes.

Can't even remember the last time I even had a virus or any malware, must be at least 15yrs+ ago but it's nice having peace of mind. I'd rather have it and not need it and need it and not have it.

I don't care how careful you might be, it may only take one genuine website or program thats been tampered with to cause problems.
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Jan 2009
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6,369
I don't use any Antivirus, But i tend to only go on these forums,Youtube,Bank website and never download anything dodgy and been okay.

I really should get something on there though, In the past I've used NOD/ESET..that's brilliant very light on resources, Kaspersky isn't too bad either.
 
Associate
Joined
29 Oct 2019
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1,002
Isnt that banned for use in us and europe?
Nope, I don't work for the US government so it doesn't concern me. There was some media hysteria a while ago about it being spyware, so far there has been absolutely zero evidence of that. I believe some NSA worker made a mistake by agreeing to voluntarily upload suspicious files to Kaspersky for analysis, and he sent some NSA hacking tool that wasn't supposed to be shared. That is generally a good thing to give users that option because it allows them to identify and protect against new threats quicker.
 
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