Are Anti-Viruses A Total Waste Of Time?

BomberAF said:

...I have had periods before where I have used a free AV such as MS Essentials, and I have found no difference what so ever in the rate at which I get or don't get infected. I have also noticed that the only software that ever has any affect on performance is the AV......

I would be interested in the performace issues that you noticed while using MSE. If you set it to use only 10% of the CPU during scans, do you still notice MSE?

AV software can only find malware that it knows about or it can stop some malware based on how it is acting (heuristics). MSE's heuristics are poor, IMO; but I still suggest MSE because it gets along with other software so well.

I maintain that one cannot know if a computer is free from infections no matter if AV software is used or not.

I know several people that do not use any AV tools and they seem not to get infected.. but like I said above, one can never know for sure. But you already said that using an AV tool makes "no difference what so ever in the rate at which I get or don't get infected" - so I'll assume that you have been infected from time to time. If that is the case, then I suggest that you learn how to create a Virtual Machine using the free tool name VirtualBox and get a free Operating System like Ubuntu with a W7 theme and do your surfing from there.

@BomberAF
How often does your PC get infected?
Maybe consider different surfing / usage habits?
If you get re-curing malware, where is it coming from...?

DavidW7ncus said:

@BomberAF
How often does your PC get infected?
Maybe consider different surfing / usage habits?
If you get re-curing malware, where is it coming from...?

Never, less than once ever 2 years and then it is my fault.

Kari said:

BomberAF said:

The point I am making is when I have been infected while using an AV the AV itself has made it difficult to remove threat as they generally need to be uninstalled. So for the whole time I never have a virus I am having to put up with an AV that is costing me money and slowing my machine down.

About paying for an AV protection I already told what I think. No need, the free alternatives work OK.

That being said, I apologize for using a metaphor again but as almost all children in developed world and luckily ever increasing also in third world are vaccinated against polio but almost nobody comes ill with polio anymore, would you select not giving your kids the vaccine because you or someone you know have never had polio?

The function of an AV program is not to help to get rid of malware after your PC has become infected. The main function is to find the possible threats before they can infect your system.

We have fundamental difference here in our opinions. I would never leave my computer unprotected as I would never drive 200 kmph without seat belts or deny my kid a vaccination. They are all about the same thing: not expecting any problems but be prepared if something unexpected happens.

Point I was making is that when I have got infected an AV hasn't worked and has got in the way of removing infection.

Kari said:

I assume you want honest opinions?...

Can the OP get honest opinions here (or in most any other forum) for both sides of this discussion? It would be reputation suicide for a forum member to say "Sure, it is okay to be online without an AV tool installed."

I understand the OP's logic... but I still suggest that the OP use MSE.

I have no choice but to put up with the performance hit of Symantec's AV tool since this computer is owned by my employer... and yet I've only had false positives to deal with from that AV tool. As far as I know, this computer has not been infected and the AV tool has never flagged any real malware. (I do not recall Symantec ever flagging real malware in the 10+ years that I've used it.) So having Symantec installed is a real negative for me. Symantec has deleted some AutoIt scripts that I wrote/compiled and it continues to flag/delete the SciTE editor if I forget to exclude it. :-(

This OP does not use any AV tool and yet I do not see anyone refuting his last post. I've seen one video of a true drive-by infection, but it were not in the wild, it required javascript to be enabled and UAC could have stopped it.

If the browser would be properly sandboxed, no Java / Flash / Adobe PDF installed, then one would be quite ok without antivirus. The problem is this is never the case... :) AV gives the first warnings in cases of less visible parasites that do not use that much of resources or use them intelligently : banker trojans, idle miners, some of spam bots.

I have a sandbox in AIS, but I do not go to or visit sites that would require using it. I would never advocate not using an AV, many are free so why take a chance??

Gary said:

I have a sandbox in AIS, but I do not go to or visit sites that would require using it....

So, you don't visit websites run by the U.S. government?
U.S. Labor Dept. Website Hacked, Serves Malware - Security -

How about those run by the BBC, CNN, Reuters....?

Gary said:

...why take a chance??

The OP answered that by stating AV tools slow down the computer. And that AV tools [sometimes] have to be uninstalled when removing infections that got past them. Most members here have suggested that people uninstall apps that they don't use - especially if the app runs all of the time. If I see no infections being prevented over a ten year period, but I repeatedly have to deal with false positives - why would I want an AV tool installed?

I hope that you can tell that I'm just presenting the other side. I still suggest that people use AV tools and put up with the drawbacks of doing so.

Has AVAST stopped any infections for you lately?