Who actually uses Antivirus?

[KeeperOfThePizza]

I never use anti virus at all, I dont feel it's necessary. I mean if you know what your doing and what your downloading I think your safe.

[+orgitnized Subscriber¹]

I think you're twisting what I said. I never said it's 100% secure, nothing is. But I can tell you that using a good set of "Best Practices" is better than using any kind of AV on the market.

Yeah, maybe you should publish all your best practices out to schools and businesses and see how many people point and laugh at you. I want to meet the salesman with your mentality when it comes to computer security. The moment you step in to a school or business and say "using a set of best practices is better than using any kind of AV on the market" is the day that you are ejected, red-faced with people realizing that you have no credibility.

It's a sad thing to read about people in this thread thinking they can outsmart every virus writer out there because they somehow think they have a best practices methodology down to a science. But hey, to each their own. I still relish the fact that you guys pay my bills, because I get calls from people that need their machines cleaned, protected and the like because they thought they were so saavy with PC's and didn't need protection prior to the date that they have to call me.

I still look at it with the following logic, and you can call it flawed all day long if you'd like:

If all PC's in the world running Windows had effective, up-to-date anti-virus, there would be less viruses wreaking havoc on personal machines and networks world-wide. In contrast, I think the situation would be far worse from a virus standpoint if all PC's in the world were modeled around someone's best practices model, excluding antivirus protection. Simply put, I believe that there would be more viruses causing problems on machines worldwide if everyone believed that anti-virus products were not necessary.

[Tews]

Ubuntu + router ... nuff said :p

[devHead]

I used to use anti-virus software religiously; but since I've switched to Vista and have a router with a hardware firewall, i've not been using anything. Just the Defender that comes with Vista and its firewall. I've not had a single virus.

[+allan MVC]

Firewalls have nothing to do with stopping a virus from infecting your system. The firewall will help protect your system from hackers, not virii.

[+orgitnized Subscriber¹]

I figured this would end up as more of a security thread. I wish the comments would stay on the anti-virus side of the equation only; else it's going to get too broad and people are going to lose focus of the actual thread topic's purpose.

[gigapixels Veteran]

Yeah, maybe you should publish all your best practices out to schools and businesses and see how many people point and laugh at you. I want to meet the salesman with your mentality when it comes to computer security. The moment you step in to a school or business and say "using a set of best practices is better than using any kind of AV on the market" is the day that you are ejected, red-faced with people realizing that you have no credibility.

It's a sad thing to read about people in this thread thinking they can outsmart every virus writer out there because they somehow think they have a best practices methodology down to a science. But hey, to each their own. I still relish the fact that you guys pay my bills, because I get calls from people that need their machines cleaned, protected and the like because they thought they were so saavy with PC's and didn't need protection prior to the date that they have to call me.

I still look at it with the following logic, and you can call it flawed all day long if you'd like:

If all PC's in the world running Windows had effective, up-to-date anti-virus, there would be less viruses wreaking havoc on personal machines and networks world-wide. In contrast, I think the situation would be far worse from a virus standpoint if all PC's in the world were modeled around someone's best practices model, excluding antivirus protection. Simply put, I believe that there would be more viruses causing problems on machines worldwide if everyone believed that anti-virus products were not necessary.

QFT. I'm a computer tech at Circuit City and 90% of the work I do is removing viruses/spyware from computers, with at least 50% of those being completely unprotected. The amount of infection is amazing, and it's hilarious when we get the ones that thought they had some sort of method down to keep malware out.

I use Kaspersky and I love it. It uses so few system resources that I don't even notice it apart from the icon in the system tray. To me it's a no-brainer to have anti-virus and anti-spyware (or just one that does a good job at both, such as Kaspersky).

[ahhell]

I don't use AV anymore either. As far as I'm concerned Vista x64 doesn't need it...at least not yet.

[whitebread]

I don't feel it is necessary, but I have started running it anyway. I haven't gotten a virus in a very long time, although this may be more from luck than anything else :p.

[TwistEdFish]

I have always used Zone Alarm Security Suite, I don't keep it actively running but have it set to do a deep scan once a month, it has caught some naughty little things in the past but nothing that I found to be detrimental to my system or to cause me any worries. Zone alarm is good for what it does but it is definitely a memory hog.

[+allan MVC]

What I get a kick out of is so many people admitting to not protecting their systems. And how many of them say they have only had one or two viruses - and not for a while :). In 23 years, NONE of my systems have EVER had a virus. Wonder if that's because I've always used Anti Virus software. Hmmmmmm.

[TwistEdFish]

Allan, its obvious why you have never had a virus, You live in jersey not even a virus is low enough to go there!

[+Warwagon MVC]

I use Nod32 plus I use sandboxie to sandbox my web browsing.

To the guy who needs his AV because he surfs Porn, he may wan to download a copy of sandboxie (http://www.sandboxie.com) and sandbox his web browser. Then when he's done looking at porn he can delete the sandbox and everything he went to or looked at gets deleted, and I mean EVERYTHING. To put it in laymen Geek terms, when you say sandbox firefox it's like Deep Freezing a single application. When you delete the sandbox it restores the application to its original state before it was sandboxe.

[JustGeorge]

I'll go as far as to say its outright irresponsible, disrespectful to your friends, co-workers and the rest of the internet community not to run AV and antispyware. There are just too many ways to become compromised these days. I'e seen no evidence in this thread to make me believe otherwise.

Edited March 14, 2008 by VRam

[ak03]

I have used AVG Free for 2 years now and have only caught one virus. That was when my sister caught it through one of the sites that she visits. She was using IE7 too. Bet she wouldn't have caught it on firefox...

[+longgonebn Subscriber²]

In regard to the very first post, you can't really say that. Sure I know what I am doing, and know the places I download stuff from, but you can't be sure of what people do to files. And really if you download anything, there aren't many places you can trust these days. Mainstream sites are even hard to be sure of.

I used AVG 7.5 Free for at least 2 years now, until recently I upgraded to version 8 and had all kinds of problems. Finally moved over to NOD32 and so far it seems to be doing what it should and I have no problems with it. No matter how sure you think you are, you should still use Antivirus.

[Cormier6083]

I used to use avg on my Windows box.

[cykosis]

To the OP: There was a time when simply using common sense was enough, but with these bastards getting clever with their malicious code it pays to be safe. Hell, even Neowin was compromised not too long ago with some iFrame vulnerability that was triggering everyone's AV.

[x-byte]

I wouldn't dare connecting my PC to the Internet without an antivirus installed. I'm very carefull even then. But I mostly stay on my regular sites, and those I know is safe.

And those saying "I don't get viruses".. your PC is probably infected...

[abcdefg]

Hell freezes over sooner than I'll infect my computer with antivirus crap.

[Impact]

Yeah, sometimes it seems like putting an antivirus software on your machine makes it slower than getting an actual virus (if you are stupid enough to pick one up from your....sites you go to). With all of the things they want to do, like daily scans and everything, it's just a complete pain in the arse.

[Napalm Frog]

I never really use it, but some people need it. My gf just fell for one of those AVI files that direct you to get a codec... I've taught her well over the past few years, but alas, she has more to learn. It's tiny little slipups like these that AV can come in handy. Plus, incase anybody ever decided to borrow your computer: Better safe than sorry.

[laz45]

Haven't used one in ages, I just keep everything updated and browse with firefox and everything has been fine...

Psstt... and I go to lots of pron sites and nothing.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Y(if you are stupid enough to pick one up from your....sites you go to). With all of the things they want to do, like daily scans and everything, it's just a complete pain in the arse.

Let me quote you a guy from the last page

There was a time when simply using common sense was enough, but with these bastards getting clever with their malicious code it pays to be safe. Hell, even Neowin was compromised not too long ago with some iFrame vulnerability that was triggering everyone's AV.

[getmeawhopper]

Hell freezes over sooner than I'll infect my computer with antivirus crap.

This mean speaks the truth. Antivirus software is totally unnecessary and the programmers may have a malicious intent of their own. Watermelon is not in season. What if the makers decide to ignore a few viruses to get rich? Besides, the man is bringing everyone down with the antivirus propaganda - false positives, improper definitions, memory hogging? Antiviruses are the next generation of viruses. Attempts to remain sane has failed. They must be eradicated. It is another way for Big Brother to spy on people's browsing habits. We must defeat the man and their attempts to brain wash the people. Besides natural selection seperates the wheat from the chaff.

[Tews]

This mean speaks the truth. Antivirus software is totally unnecessary and the programmers may have a malicious intent of their own. Watermelon is not in season. What if the makers decide to ignore a few viruses to get rich? Besides, the man is bringing everyone down with the antivirus propaganda - false positives, improper definitions, memory hogging? Antiviruses are the next generation of viruses. Attempts to remain sane has failed. They must be eradicated. It is another way for Big Brother to spy on people's browsing habits. We must defeat the man and their attempts to brain wash the people. Besides natural selection seperates the wheat from the chaff.

WTF?