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Who actually uses Antivirus?

Asked by KeeperOfThePizza,

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Grand Master

+Warwagon MVC

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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.

Ok next time you are infected, I'm not going to feel sory for you/

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Apprentice

pippi123

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I don't use an antivirus either. I used to use NOD32 but didn't renew my license when it ran out half a year ago. Since I'm online (1996, started with AOL), I never got a virus.

- I don't use any warez, my WinXP and all programs are always up to date. I only use trusted opensource or otherwise free mainstream software. Millions of other people use these programs. If something would be wrong with them, it would be known immediately. I download only from the publishers sites, soureforge or trusted large download sites (CNET, Betanews) and check MD5/signatures if available. I generally don't try a lot of new software anymore.

- If I get a new somewhat untrusted file, I check it at Virustotal AND Jotti online malware scanner AND run it first in Sandboxie. From time to time I check my sytem with Kaspersky online scanner.

- I don't use P2P.

- I only use webmail with serverside antivirus.

- I'm not logged in as admin.

- I'm the only one who uses this machine. I'm quickly alerted, bordering paranoid.

Why would I need a constantly running AV software? I don't need a desktop firewall either.

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Apprentice

pippi123

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@ pippi - how can you be so sure that you wont have malware on your system?

I don't see how any malware could get onto my system. I mean there isn't any malware that gets on your system just because you connect to the internets. There's always user action required and I'm very careful.

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Grand Master

ANON86364

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I don't see how any malware could get onto my system. I mean there isn't any malware that gets on your system just because you connect to the internets. There's always user action required and I'm very careful.

But you don't know...You cannot possibly be such the perfect end user that you not capabe of getting infected - whether it be a virus or spyware. Spyware is very likely to be on your system, as it is on anyone's. Maybe you should run a scan for both of these and proof yourself wrong.

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Mentor

alpha_omega

Posted
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You cannot possibly be such the perfect end user that you not capabe of getting infected - whether it be a virus or spyware.

Oh, yes you can. It's called "common sense".

I had my first and last virus back in 1995. I was a n00b and inserted a floppy that I used before in the school's PC. It was infected with a bootsector virus... This never happened again.

Anything that comes from the "outside" gets scanned whether it wants to or not. I prefer an offline scanner like Sophos' SAV32CLI.

As for spyware, I don't install spyware, so I can't have it ;)

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Grand Master

n_K

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Haha sophos, legendary. Our old school used that, and because of how it has to update, it needs an admin account for which the details were in plain text on the server and yeh, we got access to the RM admin console and stuff. You could also disable sophos by right clicking and going on disable which defeated the point in having it. If I remember, some annoying kid I was with decided to nick all the RM packages... Idiot lol

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Apprentice

pippi123

Posted
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@ pip, what happens then when you go on websites that use exploited iFrames..and trojans are picked up?

no firewall, no AV scanning for your browsing, no proactive defense....no nothing

Are up to date browsers still exploitable in this way? Probably not. Always use the latest version and you are quite safe. If there is an undiscovered exploit of some magnitude (most exploits are rather harmless small hickups that require a lot of user interaction), you also have to be on a website that exploits this error before it gets discovered. All in all VERY unlikely.

I installed F-Secure Internet Security on my parents rigs but for me it's superfluous.

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Community Regular

NiTRO

Posted
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it does not require admin account any more unless it is just to give user authorization for deletion etc, it now has a built in auto update which just uses your em account details if it was still that old school i would not of purchased another years subscription for the college.

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Grand Master

WastedJoker

Posted
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I'm having a good laugh at all the people saying they don't use an AV in the same way they say they don't support the war in Iraq :p

I'm a tech savvy internet user and I've always used an AV. I'd rather feel safe than sorry and you can never tell where the virus comes from - usb, hacked website, CD, DVD, internet download or plain old spyware.

I've yet to be infected by a virus (I've had plenty of false positives but checking online and via a secondary reliable scanner made me feel confident they were safe) or any kind of malicious software.

also, people who don't run an AV are likely to increase the prevalence of botnet's and/or virus - how do you know you're clean if you don't have an AV, hmmm?

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