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Is Antivirus Software a Waste of Money?

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vetegr:

A good firewall.  I use Comodo Firewall.  Not the big Security Suite; it tends to slow the computer down.  Just the firewall.

Malwarebytes AntiMalware, free version, and do regular manual scans.

WinPatrol and Threatfire keep an eye on suspicious behavior without depending on a never-quite-complete database of known viruses.

Sandboxie.  Can't praise Sandboxie enough.  Free, easy to use.  Run your browser (or email or any other program) in a sandbox and any malware will infect only the sandbox.  Delete the sandbox when you're through and the infection is also deleted, leaving your system clean.

Redhat:
After a few years hiatus using Mac OS X, I've just come back to Windows (alongside the Mac still though) and it's funny, I was in a total panic to install AV and Windows Updates before anything terrible happened.

I'm a sysadmin of a Windows network, so maybe having alerts screaming up at me all day blurs my perspective. But, even as a careful user, you never know what might happen at 3am when you're tired as hell and just click that UAC alert to get rid of it..

ESET all the way for me!

Innuendo:
After a few years hiatus using Mac OS X, I've just come back to Windows (alongside the Mac still though) and it's funny, I was in a total panic to install AV and Windows Updates before anything terrible happened.-Redhat (April 03, 2012, 08:06 PM)
--- End quote ---

Fortunately, the rush to install patches & updates before drive-by malware infects your Windows install has been a thing of the past since Windows XP SP2. A lot of things have changed for the better in the Windows world during your hiatus (and some things for the worse...and some even no change at all).

I think overall you'll enjoy the direction Windows has gone & the direction in which it is going.

Fred Nerd:
I got a few viruses when I first started with computers back in 2000 or so.
Then I learned to clean it all up and after playing with useless, resource hogging AV, I now run totally unsecured.

I use Firefox with adblock and flashblock, and know a bit about what email links to open. Also, I do like a software firewall, but even just Windows one is fine.

Also I have found that just about anything can be cleaned with autoruns and HijackThis. Or at least that has always found the problem for me.
I have everything backed up, so that is 'safe'. Just a bit worried about banking and credit cards. So far no worries. Maybe just lucky, but I have had less viruses and problems (ok, none) compared to friends who run Norton 360 or whatever the scaremongers have sold them.


Not saying this is a good idea, but it works for me. Or seems to.



The other one I would like to do, but don't want to pay for the bandwidth is update Windows to spec. Windows Genuine Advantage put me off that anyway.

mahesh2k:
Rootkits, they're quite hard to manage with any security software and windows is the only OS that has tons of them. I have observed few of them on modern windows versions, and they are quite hard to get rid of, so antivirus or not, these creeps are supposed to be dealt with /mbr format.

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