i have been wondering lately wether to just uninstall avg as ive never once got a virus and it just seems a waste of time. i dont download off bit torrent or limewire or random porn sites, i also dont open any dodgy looking emails so am i right to think that an anti virus software is crap. always seemed like a con to make money to me anyway.
i dont know about antiVIRUS software, but i would seriously recomend investing in a good antiSPYWARE program. simply because i had been running a computer for a few weeks without any sort of 'protection' as it were and pretty soon i had some sort of trojan on my pc and some other crap, and all the computer was ever used for was to update a single excel file and send it via gmail! its always better to be safe than sorry. you dont want some random person a thousand miles away to be using your credit card details to access p0rn now do ya!
If your careful then no, there is no need for anitvirus 24/7 hogging ya system up. I do a scan every few months to check for trojans and thats about it, never ever had a problem.
i certainly am, i used to have norton because it was on offer but my god it was a piece of crap.. i have adaware, and i run that every so often. never finds anything tho.. whats the built in windows defender like? i have that on an auto scan everyday but i have no idea if thats jsut rubbish anyway, just thought id leave it lol
It depends what you use the computer for, and what sort of hardware you have. I have AVG Antivirus and Online Armour Firewall on my main PC. I use this for online banking and and shall-we-say less salubrious web surfing. However on my eee, I rely on Firefox, XP Firewall and a good dose of experience/common sense to protect me.
If you are careful and run Vista or Server 2008 (with UAC turned on) (or Windows 7), then I say live without anti-virus. If you get one, it won't be able to do anything to your system, as it would need you to allow it. And if you hit on that "continue" button by mistake, you can go "back in time", or restore your computer thanks to Complete PC Backup (which makes an image of your computer, so if you have it setup to do it everyday, you are good!) Another upside, is that these 2 OS features a real firewall software that competes nicely against Zone Alarm and many other free firewall. I have AVG free edition, but I set it up to not run automatically, and perform any scanning what's so ever. I execute every like once 2 month just to be extra sure, but that is all.
Its a bit like Do I really need a fire alarm? I don't intend to set any fires but if its free whats the harm? I certainly wouldn't buy a subscription to Norton for personal use but AntiVir's AVG guard has caught trojans trying to install themselves through firefox a couple of times actually.
Following on from this post: I think we get slightly paranoid about the impact these programs have on system performance, believe me I've had to fix many Windows systems which were running slowly and in every case the problem was a virus or some other malware and NOT because the installed security software was hogging system resources. RAM is cheap. Start with a secure browser such as Firefox (my preference is Opera but I still think either is better than IE) and watch what sites you visit, it only takes a second to compromise your system. In my opinion only a fool would choose not to use a combination of firewall/anti-spyware/anti-virus especially when decent free solutions are readily available.
i use whatever firewall is in my router, no antivirus, no anti-spyware, and i have not had a problem in 5 years of doing so. as long as you aren't stupid and you don't let stupid people use your computer you will be fine. worst case scenario, i have to reformat. and if i do, all i will lose is the stuff in my downloads folder and maybe a couple savegames, everthing else is backed up on my fileserver, and the really important stuff is also on removable storage.
You've convinced me. I'm going to remove all the fire alarms from my house. They are hogging my ceiling resources
Haha. Genius. I use avast! free edition, I have gone without it and any more speed is either non-existent or negligible. I find that its better to be safe than sorry, especially considering that its not costing me anything and it doesn't interfere with my computing. There was an article very recently in PC pro, and they did some tests and they came out pretty clean even going with the worst case scenario, porn sites and bittorrenting, even then the threat wasn't high at all, but still if its free and barely uses resources then what's the point in not having an AV. I would rather it catch one virus or some sort of malware one time in 10 years than have a tiny weeny bit more performance for 10 years and then loose data or get my bank details stolen.
Removing viruses (and building computers) is my job, which puts me in a pretty experienced place to judge whether you need an anti-virus software or not. For the common user, it is obscene to think of not running an anti-virus. Hijacking software like SmitFraud class viruses (viruses that pretend they are anti-virus software) are more common than you could ever imagine, coming in through e-mail, websites, and the most devious, banner ad agency hacks. That's right, you can get a virus from bit-tech, Facebook, or even Google IF the virus has infected an ad agency that circulates advertisement on those sites. Now I doubt we'll get one here, but there IS a possibility of getting a virus from a trusted site. I use collegehumor.com a lot, and about every six months I get a banner ad pop up that redirects me to the install file/script for a SmitFraud class virus even with anti-virus software running. Now I'm a computer guy (as most of us are to some degree), I know how to pull the plug (three finger salute) on FireFox or Internet Explorer, but I hate to imagine if my anti-virus software wasn't there to stop the majority of the scripts from running. That said, McAffe and Norton are both terrible products that consume WAY too much system resources. Running a program like AVG, Avast, Avira, NOD32, F-PROT, or a whole bunch I can't think of is the best way to get the best of both worlds, you get resident shield protection (that runs and analyzes your systems open processes so as to notice a virus as soon as it opens), the ability to scan if you so choose (I never do scans, I would recommend doing them like once a month) and they use less than 5% system resources (when not scanning). Regarding firewalls, the built in Windows firewall is more than enough, and from a hacking standpoint there is a significant amount of "holes" before they ever get to a software firewall (like Norton, ZoneAlarm, or Armor). If you're serious about being protected from hackers (rather than from viruses and spyware). Buy a SonicWall, a router with a firewall (like the Linksys WRVS4400N) or build a router from old junk PC parts using the Mon0wall Free-BSD variant, which is not quite as good as a SonicWall but close. Ed. Just for the record, we are a gold partner with AVG, and all of our new systems get AVG Anti-Virus (with spyware protection) for 2 years when purchased (the pay version, not the free version).
Yes, LordLuciendar, you can also get killed the second you step outside of your home. You should wear a bullet proof vest, and the bullet proof pants and a bullet proof helmet. You can get a kit with everything for cheaper. Things happens, even if you have an anti-virus and everything, a virus, malware, or something will find a way to by-pass it. And the worst is that you 'll be infected and you will never know about it as all your protection software won't see it... well for sometime until a update comes a long. The worst malware I saw, was back in the day with Windows 98 I believe. Now I can't remember exactly how it worked again, it was some time ago as you can see. You had a malware that detected Norton, by-pass the detection, disable and delete the main executable of the anti-virus. And prompt the user with a Norton like anti-virus prompting the user to restart their computer to apply a security update. Once done, nothing happen, to the eyes of the user. Every time they execute a scan, it runs the fake Norton that looks identical to the user one, that false a disk activity and you see a progress bar. And even thus you have 20 viruses, it still shows 0, as it's a fake software.
That's really not that bad. That's a borderline example of SmitFraud, aka xp anti-virus 2009, win anti-virus 2009... the list goes on. The worst virus I've ever seen is a driver level virus that installs on computers with older Seagate hard drives and rewrites the firmware in order to overvoltage the hard drive motor. Once the platters hit about 30k rpm they start to wobble and crash into the headers and once they catch the wall of the drive "boom" the platters explode like when you throw a CD at a wall, sometimes the spindle would even hop the bearings through the case and blow apart. I've never used Seagate since... *shrugs* It's not like I mind people willingly putting themselves at risk, that is after all how I make my money. Just to mention, but most viruses don't just infect your computer just to prove they can get inside, usually they have a purpose (like slowing your computer to a crawl and then suggesting "buy me" and once your CC# is in their possession...) or sometimes a lot worse. If your bank account shows up empty because you ran your credit card without security software, trust me, you'll notice it, and trust me, it DOES happen. It's really hard to console people who have that happen to them, and sometimes, we DO have to do that, or what about the mother who looses every picture of her family she's taken. Seriously, if you want to be ballsy, do it yourself, but don't recommend that everyone else follow you. See, now this has irked me, because it IS true that that's exactly what you/others who recommend no anti-virus software are doing. I could understand it if it was for the performance benefit. Running no A/V will get you tiny bit of performance difference, just like sex without a condom feels a little bit better, but the consequences could be catastrophic. You've made the decision for yourself, and that's fine, but encouraging the rest of the world, especially someone who needs to ask, to follow you is just irresponsible. Yea, I might not wear kevlar every day, but if I lived in a war zone I probably would, and the internet IS like a war zone. Read ANY report about malware today, it is hundreds if not thousands of times more prevalent than even a few years ago, so common that companies that took the very effective brute force method of detection like Norton are coming under fire for consuming too many system resources, despite the fact that their virus detection rates are phenomenal... Run anti-virus software, and if you don't, make sure you know what the hell your doing and that you're not expecting everyone around you to do exactly that. I have gone over three months without anti-virus software on my work computer, and I wasn't concerned, why? Because I remove some of the worst viruses around every day, if I get one on my computer, I can take it back off, not everyone is so lucky, personally I don't think it's all that important for me to run it, I can clone back my computers in 20min without any data loss, I can remove the virus usually in less time than that, but I'd be willing to bet there aren't many, even on this forum, that can do that, so I recommend running it, for those that can't. ed. Sorry for the incredibly disjointed sentence... I just keep going when I'm worked up.
Everyone likes performance but is there any serious reason to not use a low-memory usage free virus scanner? but that logic you might as well just install linux because Windows is hogging a lot more performance.
try Windows Antivirus 2008, it'll give me more work and therefore, more money (i'm a tech at microbytes)
I decided long ago that I don't need antivirus software. I do periodic virus and malware scans, and it's been over two years since a single piece of adware, spyware, or virus software appeared in the results. I still run an antivirus, though. I'm pretty sure AVG blocks a lot of things behind the scenes and never really tells me about it, because I ran Avast! for a while and got many warning messages when it blocked these same things. I also trust AVG to flip out and notify me if I ever do get a virus - I once had a file I thought was a trojan, and ran it on a spare computer to find out. It most certainly was a trojan, and while AVG didn't stop it (neither did four or five other programs I tried), AVG sure let me know there was a problem in a hurry. So no, I don't feel antivirus is necessary to run a clean computer. I run mine so I'll know if my computer ever stops being clean. I guess I'm using the software less for its designed protection than for its reaction.
I'd suggest keeping AVG around for the resident shield, but I almost never run a proper system scan, maybe once a month at most tbh, along with a SpybotS&D and AdAware. Haven't found anything for ages. I can see what LordLuciendar is getting at (although try not to be so condescending please! ), and he's right - unless you're supremely confident in knowing you won't get a virus, and having a spare machine to help you out if you do get one (along with the ability to rid yourself of one), then I'd keep it around. I know (from practice with others machines) I could rid myself of all but the nastiest virii in the event of infection, but why bother? AVG/similar uses so few resources when in idle mode it's just not worth the effort tbh.
