Antivirus Software

[Lance Sloan]

This is a discussion about the best ways of protecting your computer.

How do I protect my computer from malicious software? What is the best antivirus software out there? Is that even a coherent question? 

[mrswagbhinav]

Well the best anti-virus can be completely subjective, my opinion? No anti-virus. As long as you know what you are doing and aren't downloading fap.exe and clicking on all sorts of shit then you should be okay. If you are, then limit that nonsense to your phone or a chromebook

[ZetZet]

Well the best anti-virus can be completely subjective, my opinion? No anti-virus. As long as you know what you are doing and aren't downloading fap.exe and clicking on all sorts of shit then you should be okay. If you are, then limit that nonsense to your phone or a chromebook

no antivirus is too risky even for pros. windows defender and chrome/mozilla is good enough, but nothing will not prevent those pesky things from getting in.

[SageC]

Well the best anti-virus can be completely subjective, my opinion? No anti-virus. As long as you know what you are doing and aren't downloading fap.exe and clicking on all sorts of shit then you should be okay. If you are, then limit that nonsense to your phone or a chromebook

 

I've been antivirus free for years and I've only experienced one unfortunate adware install, but it was easy enough to clean up after some googling.

[mrswagbhinav]

Well I use CCleaner and occasionally defrag my drives

[MattTheMayor]

avast and malwarebytes

[Enderman]

Malwarebytes + one of either AVG or avast depending on what you like better

you always want antimalware and antivirus together, not just one or the other.

 

 

Well the best anti-virus can be completely subjective, my opinion? No anti-virus. As long as you know what you are doing and aren't downloading fap.exe and clicking on all sorts of shit then you should be okay. If you are, then limit that nonsense to your phone or a chromebook

This was proven to be false. Just because you are not downloading suspicious files does not mean you are safe. Only a few months ago a widely used safe program called puush for taking screenshots had an update which was a virus. This was a 100% trusted program, used by tens of thousands of people, and someone managed to insert a virus into a standard update.

 

Luckily most people were using an antivirus which caught and quarantined it immediately, and notified all other antivirus users that there was a virus in the update.

[mrswagbhinav]

Malwarebytes + one of either AVG or avast depending on what you like better

you always want antimalware and antivirus together, not just one or the other.

 

 

This was proven to be false. Just because you are not downloading suspicious files does not mean you are safe. Only a few months ago a widely used safe program called puush for taking screenshots had an update which was a virus. This was a 100% trusted program, used by tens of thousands of people, and someone managed to insert a virus into a standard update.

 

Luckily most people were using an antivirus which caught and quarantined it immediately, and notified all other antivirus users that there was a virus in the update.

I still have windows defender as a fail safe

[ZetZet]

Malwarebytes + one of either AVG or avast depending on what you like better

you always want antimalware and antivirus together, not just one or the other.

 

 

This was proven to be false. Just because you are not downloading suspicious files does not mean you are safe. Only a few months ago a widely used safe program called puush for taking screenshots had an update which was a virus. This was a 100% trusted program, used by tens of thousands of people, and someone managed to insert a virus into a standard update.

 

Luckily most people were using an antivirus which caught and quarantined it immediately, and notified all other antivirus users that there was a virus in the update.

windows defender is still the best. it's doing it's thing in the background don't even notice it, ever.  :lol:

[MblaZe7run]

No antivirus for me. I've run some in the past, but actually got more malware than without an antivirus. I run monthly scans with Malwarebytes, and have Adblock Plus installed on all my browsers (with sites like LTT excluded from filtering). I think it's more of a mental thing. When I had an antivirus, I thought they were fool-proof. I would browse the web all willy-nilly. Now, without an antivirus, I won't go to a site that I'm unfamiliar with, and test it at work before navigating at home.

[Enderman]

windows defender is still the best. it's doing it's thing in the background don't even notice it, ever.  :lol:

same with my AVG

[Enderman]

I still have windows defender as a fail safe

Ah ok good, so you are using an antivirus.

[mrswagbhinav]

The main reason I don't use anti-viruses is the clutter. I can not stand software popping up every five seconds with some alert. That and when I used one (I don't rememeber which) my performance went to shit. My CPU and RAM usage where are 80% when the anti-virus was on.

[ZetZet]

Also, don't rely on Windows Defender. Just don't,

any reason for that

[cobie555555]

Free anti-viruses: Bitdefender, Panda or Avira.

Paid: Bitdefender, Kaspersky or Panda.

Extra: Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit, Bitdefender Trafficlight

 

Also, please don't use Avast. Worst piece of software with fasle positives higher than a hippie. Still not as bad as Norton, though. 

Also also, Malwarebytes Free does not have real-time protection, thus defeating the purpose of safety. "I scan once a week" isn't good enough when your shit gets infected and your personal data is in the public domain.

 

Also, don't rely on Windows Defender. Just don't,

You think Norton has bad false-positives? Interesting. Any personal experience with that?

[ZetZet]

Piss poor detection, is used as the baseline for results by organisations like AV-Comparatives. I've lost track on how many times I've seen WD fail to protect anything. Detects everything that isn't dangerous as so, like third party installers. It even went spastic over a Ninite installer once.

 

 

 

I work in electronics retail, 50% sales and 50% customer support / computer repairs, etc. The amount of times I've seen virus infested PCs and simply annoyed customers because of Norton is really distrubing. Norton is usually a paid suite, so you'd expect the fucking thing to work, right? Well, it doesn't. Back-up feature barely works, malware- and virus detection is putrid, nags more than Franklin's girlfriend from GTA V and usually retails for an insane amount compared to the better choices of suites out there. You'd be better off dipping 30€ in lighter fuel, ignite it and install fucking Avast and you'd get a better experience. 

never ever had wd detect anything that wasn't dangerous and i had avg, avira, avast, all those annoyed me to no end.

[NexusRed]

I use 360 Essential Security. Built in AV, Cloud AV, daily Bitdefender and Avira realtime engine updates. Mix that with Malwarebytes premium and your good to go.