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.

[Miuku.]

Based on the number of people who claim they don't use an AV, you are clearly mistaken. :no: I deal with IT professionals for a living and I don't know one - or any knowledgeable user for that matter - who would even turn on his system without it being completely protected (and obviously that includes the use of a good Anti Virus utility). No offense intended to anyone here - just stating a fact.

Here's some facts for you:

A real professional doesn't need a virus protection on his / her machine because he / her has setup a proxy machine and runs everything locally as a restricted user or?in a sandbox. Of course a real professional wouldn't run Windows in the first place so that's a sort of a moot point?anyway.

[gigapixels Veteran]

Of course a real professional wouldn't run Windows in the first place so that's a sort of a moot point?anyway.

Wow, there goes your credibility.:rolleyes::

[HawkMan]

Here's some facts for you:

A real professional doesn't need a virus protection on his / her machine because he / her has setup a proxy machine and runs everything locally as a restricted user or?in a sandbox. Of course a real professional wouldn't run Windows in the first place so that's a sort of a moot point?anyway.

bad attitude to show when applying for jobs. even hard core linux work places would have trouble hiring someone with that attitude.

anyway I haven't run AV since I switched to Vista at RTM. top start with I didn't simply because there's wasn't a lot of good compatible clients. then I realized I've never had a real virus attack with NOD32 active either, and knowing what not to do oin the net is far better protection than an AV.

Personally I wouldn't reccomend anyone run XP without AV, one with good heurestics. Vista on the other hand, if the user is caeful about their surfing habits and don't do stupid **** and they're in my family I can let the AV go, but for most regular users I'd reccomend an AV on Vista, OSX and Linux, neither of them are foolproof. though for neither of those systems viruses are a very big danger anyway. And with IE in secure mode on Vista you've pretty much closed that vector anyway.

oh and Phoenix, real professionals don't do all that, they laugh and call peopel that do all that paranoid. yeah sure at work you'll run at least one hardware firewall and IF the network is connected to the net(hospital networks for example usually are not, outside of a separate patient network), a proxy and stuff, but at home, if you do all that at home you're either paranoid or you're doign stuff that gives you a reason to be paranoid.

[Julius Caro]

Most of the times I dont use an antivirus. But that's because I only run a handful of well-known programs. And because after 8 years of using antiviruses, they never find viruses on my computer, only certain executables that were bound to be viruses anyway. Solution: dont run such dubious files!

Absolute nonsense.

First, nobody - and I mean NOBODY is more diligent about keeping his system "updated" than I am - and there is NO WAY I'd ever even turn on a system if wasn't running a top notch AV with current definitions (I use Kaspersky on all my systems, by the way). Second, every program you run draws upon system resources. So following your logic if you don't want anything to impair performance, perhaps it's best to just not install anything other than the OS. If you are using an AV and you feel it slows down your system noticeably, switch to a different product. For 20 years I was on the Norton / Symantec bandwagon, but their products became so "bloated" I eventually moved away. But not use an AV at all? That's for people who don't know better but think they do! And a false sense of security? Sorry - that's not even worth a comment.

He's got a point though. Antiviruses aren't going to help that much when it comes to exploits that are yet to be patched in webbrowsers.

[Venomous]

Here's some facts for you:

A real professional doesn't need a virus protection on his / her machine because he / her has setup a proxy machine and runs everything locally as a restricted user or in a sandbox. Of course a real professional wouldn't run Windows in the first place so that's a sort of a moot point anyway.

Agree with this except the bold. you killed the line with that.

[+allan MVC]

He's got a point though. Antiviruses aren't going to help that much when it comes to exploits that are yet to be patched in webbrowsers.

Look, developers and propagators of malware are continually coming up with new and malicious methods of attacking our systems. Nothing, not even the most advanced heuristics, can anticipate and prevent everything. Think of it like this: an anti virus utility serves a similar purpose for your computer as air bags, kevlar vests, sport helmets, flu shots, etc. do for your physical well being. All of these items are critical to help prevent injury, but none of them is - or claims to be - 100% effective at doing so. They must be used in conjunction with common sense, smart practices, some level of intelligence, and in no small part, a degree of luck. That does not mean they are not important - on the contrary, each offers a significant degree of protection - but it is always incumbent upon the end user to make sure he or she takes every possible step to insure his own safety. This is no less true when considering the security our computers.

Edited March 16, 2008 by allan

[_bobcat_ Veteran]

I can't believe the number of people who think they're better than all the 1000s of experts who spend their lives writing viruses or the patches to stop those viruses. I just can't believe people are so arrogant, it's laughable. Do theses anti anti-virus nuts really, truly, believe that no one could *ever* write something that will slip in without their knowledge and start logging their bank and paypal passwords? :rolleyes:

Allan makes the rest of the point I was about to say very well.

Personally I use Avast, which makes no difference to performance that I can see. Along with that I'm a cautious user, do my updates and back up my work etc.

I can't take the risk of having to spend hours fixing viruses and reinstalling my OS when I've got it set up just how I like it and usually have a gazillion uni deadlines to worry about. I don't know if Avast is the best solution, but it's free and I never have problems. I'd rather have me + the anti virus writers looking out for problems rather than just me alone.

[xpgeek]

I haven't had a virus in, I can't even remember how many years now, but, I jus kinda got this feeling, that with my luck, I'd get one 5 minutes after I go antivirus free.

I really don't think I need one, but, better safe then sorry. Am always going back and forth between AVG and Avast. Not uninstalling and switching, just trying the other for a while the next time I format the system.

[abcdefg]

I can't believe the number of people who think they're better than all the 1000s of experts who spend their lives writing viruses or the patches to stop those viruses. I just can't believe people are so arrogant, it's laughable. Do theses anti anti-virus nuts really, truly, believe that no one could *ever* write something that will slip in without their knowledge and start logging their bank and paypal passwords? :rolleyes:

Well do you think that no one can slip past your poor Avast?

Personally I use Avast,

When I used Avast it missed a great deal of viruses I gathered for testing purposes and also gave incredible amount of false positives. I hope you feel safe.

@ HawkMan

Personally I wouldn't reccomend anyone run XP without AV, one with good heurestics. Vista on the other hand, if the user is caeful about their surfing habits and don't do stupid ****

Surfing habits? Haha. Fail.

[gigapixels Veteran]

It doesn't matter if something can slip through an AV program; that doesn't make the entire thing useless. Without one, ANYTHING can slip through to your computer. That's a completely retarded reason not to use anti-virus programs.

[abcdefg]

Without one, ANYTHING can slip through to your computer. That's a completely retarded reason not to use anti-virus programs.

I don't use AV because they f*** up Window$. Like Kaspersky which ultimately prevented running any programs, even task manager. Then it was time for a boot boot. Symptoms disappeared with the deletion of big K.

Why should I care if ANYTHING can slip to my computer. It's not what sits at your disk but what it can do from there. I bet you run (or have run) XP happily with admin account which is retarded and completely destroys security whether you are running AV or not.

[gigapixels Veteran]

Viruses and spyware can screw your system far more than a security program can.

I'm going to quit right now because I know you and all the rest who think AV programs are unnecessary will never be swayed by anything I say. I'll continue knowing that I'm being more intelligent about my system's security, while you can go on in some delusion that not running an AV program is better. I'll be better off, I guarantee it.

[sn00pie]

I use NOD32, but I don't even know why I bother. I don't visit any x rated websites, usually I just use the computer for things like MSN, facebook and homework. With the occasional Neowin lol

Do I need a firewall? Or is the built-in firewall in XP Pro sufficient?

[+allan MVC]

I use NOD32, but I don't even know why I bother. I don't visit any x rated websites, usually I just use the computer for things like MSN, facebook and homework. With the occasional Neowin lol

Is it that people can't read or can't understand???? (No offense aimed at you Game, you just happen to be the most recent post saying the same thing that makes absolutely no sense).

And to answer your question, XP's firewall is just fine for thwarting things coming in, though it does not prevent anything going out.

[HawkMan]

Seriusly, Viruses need an attack vector.

Now let's look at soem of the biggest most destructuve viruses.

The "I love you" virus, need to open an actual attachment in a mail, heck it even had the vbs extension. you've got to be pretty effin stupid to open it. unfortunately the worlds has lots of stupid people (it's the ones that click the check who blocked you links in messenger...). Chances of being attacked by this sort of virus if you have some basic training in using computers and good practices, Zero.

Then you have the "blaster" type of virus. using zero day exploits in OS's before it's patched and before the AV's have it listed. Chances of an AV protecting you against this in the initial attacks, Zero. However a firewall might and probably will help, and since we're still on an ipv4 internet, you're probably behind a NAT too, basically adding another layer of protection. Though I'd rather the itnernet have enough IP's to give unique ip's to all computers. But I'm not paranoid.

The real danger really lies in hackers, and few personal computers are targets of this, and against hackers the most vulnerable modern OS is probably Linux, not because the core is unsecure, but because they are used on so many web servers and those services are unsecure. so numbers do matter.

As it is, Nod32 has a negligible practically zero impact on performance, outside of updates anyway, but as it is since I run vista and the situation is what it is today, I don't see a need to pay the license or bother with the updates. But as I said, by no means am I telling other people to not run AV, afterall as I've allready established, people are stupid, and hence they do stupid things.

Ironically the last and only time I've had a virus was on my old 486 before the internet, from disks, you know floppy disks... relics of the ancient days of computer technology :)

[JustGeorge]

I really don't see the logic in saying "I've never had a virus, so why do I need AV?". This is like saying "I've never been involved in a car accident, so why wear a seat belt? Sure you could still be killed, but your odds are much better wearing the belt. You don't base your need for something like that on the past, you base it on the potential to get one in the future. KIS 7 works great on my modest rig and I've seen no real impact in performance. No protection is 100% but thats no excuse to not take steps to protect yourself and your data.

[nXqd]

I have portable Clamwin for cleaning my friend's USBs ^^

[xpgeek]

Gotta post again and say some good points being made here by some. I agree that people just gotta be pretty stupid not to run any anti virus at all on Windows. Before anyone even says it .. Windows blah blah blah .. yea yea if Linux had 90% market share there'd be just as many virus's written for it.

And the whole "I know what I'm doing", "I'm a careful surfer" argument doesn't really fly either because you just never know if some hacker took over CCleaner.com (or watever name your site) and replaced the download files. Since you have NO antivirus at all, you really have NO way of knowing thats not the real CCleaner installer do you? Rare? sure. But it can happen.

The whole "I can't be bothered with updates" argument doesn't fly either. I install Avast or AVG, and thats pretty much the last thing I ever have to do with it. It just sits there and updates itself daily with zero interaction required from me ever.

The "it uses too many resources" argument carrys at least some weight to it, but even that, come on, some antivirus's are jus made better then others, Norton is a bloated hog, AVG is not, and with 3 or 4 gigs of RAM being pretty much a standard for most geeks like us on Neowin now, and 250 and 500 gig hard drives galore these days, its really not a valid excuse anymore unless you're on a pretty old/slow PC.

[digiqq]

dude you have to check your friend's flash disk when you need to share files.

[Dc'1]

I have one, I rarely get viruses, but you would never know if there was nothing to tell you. You can never tell what your downloading, especially from torrents. So I always scan downloaded files from torrents.

[-Vivicidal-]

I use an anti virus. I'm careful and I've never got a virus, but my anti virus (Avast!), blocked a site with a browser hijacker and worm, thats the closest I've ever got, but anti virus still helped me then.

[That Guy Veteran]

Regarding Jpeg viruses, they are already detected. I *found* a piece of software that merges exe's and jpegs, and when I played around with it, even after merging a jpg with a perfectly innocent exe, it was still picked up on by most anti-viruses.

[ApuBo]

me use AVG free, goody goody..

[Ricardo Gil]

First of all, don't consider this as some kind of personal attack or something, but your post is so ignorant of this thread that it actually worries me

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 wasn't talking about salesmen, teachers, pregnant women or vulcans. This ain't a security guide for people. I was talking about myself. This thread is about who uses AV, who doesn't and why they use/don't use. I'm not saying people shouldn't use an AV. What I said was in the lines of "Should you not use an AV, there are best practices you can take not to get infected easily, and actually be rather safe.". It's pretty obvious you're better off with one for virus protection, but that wasn't the issue at all. Please, go and read my posts so you understand what I was talking about.

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.

Wow, talk about stating the obvious...

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.

Put it this way, most viruses, and I really emphasise most, are spread due to ignorant human interaction. Maybe, just maybe if people followed that so called model, things would actually be better than they are today. You know why? Because those same people think that having an AV is an instant panacea to their problems. But it isn't, and so they're still gonna click that strange link that popped up, and open that shady .exe from a friend, thinking they are safe.

Using your head is the best first line of defense, and I'll stick to that.

[+orgitnized Subscriber¹]

First of all, don't consider this as some kind of personal attack or something, but your post is so ignorant of this thread that it actually worries me

I wasn't talking about salesmen, teachers, pregnant women or vulcans. This ain't a security guide for people. I was talking about myself. This thread is about who uses AV, who doesn't and why they use/don't use. I'm not saying people shouldn't use an AV. What I said was in the lines of "Should you not use an AV, there are best practices you can take not to get infected easily, and actually be rather safe.". It's pretty obvious you're better off with one for virus protection, but that wasn't the issue at all. Please, go and read my posts so you understand what I was talking about.

You and I must come from a different school that defines ignorance. Don't talk about "what you said was in the lines of" because I did read what you wrote. Here, let me quote you again.

But I can tell you that using a good set of "Best Practices" is better than using any kind of AV on the market.

You just said "Best Practices" was better than using any kind of AV on the market, yet you just claimed

I'm not saying people shouldn't use an AV. What I said was in the lines of "Should you not use an AV, there are best practices you can take not to get infected easily, and actually be rather safe.". It's pretty obvious you're better off with one for virus protection, but that wasn't the issue at all.

Maybe I'm too confused by your flip-flopping to understand the point you are trying to illustrate.

Put it this way, most viruses, and I really emphasise most, are spread due to ignorant human interaction. Maybe, just maybe if people followed that so called model, things would actually be better than they are today. You know why? Because those same people think that having an AV is an instant panacea to their problems. But it isn't, and so they're still gonna click that strange link that popped up, and open that shady .exe from a friend, thinking they are safe.

Using your head is the best first line of defense, and I'll stick to that.

/sigh. Using AV is simply responsible and anyone who says otherwise I have little interest in their opinion if I'm trying to keep my environment protected, period. I can quote myself above, but I won't waste my time. If your model was so great, it would be employed by businesses all over the place today and everywhere else. And then you know what would happen? It would be compromised. And then you'd have to think of another strategy to stop it from being compromised and then...wait a minute...that almost sounds exactly like what most AV companies do today? Oh my goodness! Even firewall companies seem to have a similar defense. And some of them are really even proactive and try to prevent this kind of stuff from happening to begin with. Wait a minute, I'm on a roll here, don't stop me! :rolleyes:

Your line of thinking on best practices seems to fail to include AV, so I'm not a fan of your best practices guide. And to echo what I said before, I'll be willing to bet that if you walked into 100 businesses and told them about your best practices and how they didn't include using AV, every single one of them would simply stop paying attention. Maybe your wording is what I take the most issue with.

Talk ignorance all you want. I'm not interested on how you dance around the "logic" you posted. Bottom line is that it's more responsible to run AV on your system than to not run AV on your system. I understand what the OP stated and his question. I've re-read what you have posted and have issued my replies to your statements. I don't take offense to any of this, nor did I feel it was a personal attack, but if you're gonna debate this with me, personally, you better bring your A game because I'm all about debating.

Should we open a new topic and talk about wearing seatbelts and how you don't need to because you've perfected the perfect way to drive? I'll debate that one with you as well. ;)