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ghacks post: "Why I decided to uninstall my Antivirus software"

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wreckedcarzz:
I personally don't have any security software installed, Windows Defender is off, and Windows Firewall is also off. All I have is my hardware router's firewall, and Sandboxie for unknown software (IMO, f0dder, Sandboxie works great- I have run a virus or two in it, and all is fine). I don't see a point in security software. Even if something totally trashed my machine, I save all my install files to a backup partition, so a reformat/re-setup takes like 2 hours.

I run the occasional online virus/spyware scan, and I am always clean. It just depends on what, where, and whom is surfing, I guess.

f0dder:
If your machine is never connected to a LAN (and friends never bring over laptops/whatever), and you only selectively forward ports on your router, I guess you're mostly fine. But why turn off windows firewall? Does it impose a significant hit on your machine:

Backup partition won't help you much against nasty viruses if it's on the same machine... but fortunately most threats today is in the trojan/malware category, not viruses.

nontroppo:
The achilles heel of SBIE is personal data - it is still possible for an app to read a file from your OS and then dial that info out onto the web. So although SBIE is very good at isolating your system(I saw a great technical review of it but can't remember where now), it cannot protect personal data in its default configuration.

vegas:
I haven't had a full-time virus scanner running in 5+ years.  The only thing I ran was Nod32 for a month or two (which wasn't bad, but it's less intrusive with no scanner running)

I use a router as my firewall.
I do not open email attatchments in outlook express (if I get any that might be worth reading I forward them to a webmail account).
I run AdMuncher on all computers at all times.
I will occasionally run Autoruns, SpywareBlaster, and check for viruses once a month or so,  I have only ever had one virus or problem in the last 5 years running like this. 
I keep a LAN icon on my desktop so I may disable my network connection when I am away for extended periods of time (sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't).
Note I do not surf to porn, or other questionably trusted sites, only reputable software gets installed. I do not use filesharing programs or the like (with the rare exception of uTorrent when needed).  Most of that is what the newsgroups are for.

Essentially just using general common sense, I think can keep you protected most of the time. And don't forget to backup occasionally!
On a side note, if there is a solid virus scanner that can be run from a usb/portable drive, could someone give that a mention, cuz that would be handy for when I use other peoples computers and move files around.\

edit: grammar (as usual)

f0dder:
Essentially just using general common sense, I think can keep you protected most of the time. And don't forget to backup occasionally!
-vegas (December 08, 2007, 04:58 AM)
--- End quote ---
Until you get hit by a rogue banner ad that admuncher for some reason didn't filter... *boom*. And when that happens, it's going to be nasty.

But no, I don't run antivirus software either :)

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