Anti-Virus Software: What should I use and why?

[Gabriel Martin]

Any known antivirus will do, just make sure its updated and do a manual scan regularly. Think of it as a seat belt it's a protection, not a guarantee. Nothing will keep virus away better then you being aware and vigilant over the websites you visit and files you choose to download.

That said I use avast its free and its decent enough protection. But most of all I have back ups and i can reinstall my OS anytime if the need arises.

 

[Tharwen]

The best way to run a (Windows) computer securely is to run it on a standard account. That way, no program can do anything damaging without asking for an administrator password first (as long as you have UAC on). This is how Unix systems run, and it's the reason there are no effective viruses for them.

So, to summarise:
1. Make an administrator account with a password
2. Convert your account to a standard account
3. Remove all antivirus forever! (Actually, don't. Run a scan every now and then, just in case)

I use AVG and I can't remember the last time I had a virus. It must have been years. That doesn't necessarily say anything about AVG though, because maybe I'm just careful or super lucky and haven't encountered any viruses to begin with, or I have but other AV software would also have protected me.

Anyway, I have no reason to switch. With AVG I've always been safe, it is free, it is unobtrusive and if Task Manager is to be believed it uses virtually no resources.

But task manager doesn't tell the whole story when it comes to antivirus. The way they work is to scan every single byte of data that passes through your computer for anything harmful, which means that every network packet and every disk access attempt has to be stopped, scanned, and then allowed on its way.

There are some (slightly out of date) benchmarks for this with different software packages [a href="http://thepcspy.com/read/what_really_slows_windows_down/#results-and-conclusions"]here[/a].

Running as a LUser doesn't keep malware off your machine, it just keeps malware which requires admin access off your machine. All those passwords you type into non-privileged browsers and game launchers are still perfectly vulnerable. This is true of EVERY OS.

That's why you pay attention to where you're typing your password

 

[Murlin]

NOD32 and Kaspersky are some of the less intrusive anti-virus?es, they also don?t eat up as much recourses as Norten , AVG or Mcaffee.

but to honest no antivirus will protect you from yourself .
A few weeks ago my friend sent me a copy of some time management software his mom was forced to install on her work PC and asked me to check out what it was doing. I copied the files to my virtual machine and install the software, but when I opened WINDUMP (the windows version of TCPDUMP ) I saw that the thing is sending out images with keystrokes and everything . I had Norten preinstalled ( and up to date) on that virtual machine and it didn?t even notice that something was wrong .

So while a good antivirus is always a plus remember that they aren?t perfect .

I second this advice. I personally use NOD32 and I'm always careful on the internet, compliment that with Spybot and anti-add/tracker addons for firefox and I have been pretty much virus-free for the past three years.

 

[RvLeshrac]

The best way to run a (Windows) computer securely is to run it on a standard account. That way, no program can do anything damaging without asking for an administrator password first (as long as you have UAC on). This is how Unix systems run, and it's the reason there are no effective viruses for them.

So, to summarise:
1. Make an administrator account with a password
2. Convert your account to a standard account
3. Remove all antivirus forever! (Actually, don't. Run a scan every now and then, just in case)

I use AVG and I can't remember the last time I had a virus. It must have been years. That doesn't necessarily say anything about AVG though, because maybe I'm just careful or super lucky and haven't encountered any viruses to begin with, or I have but other AV software would also have protected me.

Anyway, I have no reason to switch. With AVG I've always been safe, it is free, it is unobtrusive and if Task Manager is to be believed it uses virtually no resources.

But task manager doesn't tell the whole story when it comes to antivirus. The way they work is to scan every single byte of data that passes through your computer for anything harmful, which means that every network packet and every disk access attempt has to be stopped, scanned, and then allowed on its way.

There are some (slightly out of date) benchmarks for this with different software packages [a href="http://thepcspy.com/read/what_really_slows_windows_down/#results-and-conclusions"]here[/a].

Running as a LUser doesn't keep malware off your machine, it just keeps malware which requires admin access off your machine. All those passwords you type into non-privileged browsers and game launchers are still perfectly vulnerable. This is true of EVERY OS.

That's why you pay attention to where you're typing your password

Oh, yeah, totally. Because that matters. Super important. No way anyone could possibly record your input. And they certainly wouldn't be able to perfectly spoof a dialog box or capture driver calls.