AntiVirus, or no AntiVirus?

Wishmaster · 31 Dec 2012

Yea, I wouldn't go without. To much out there that can be easily missed no matter how careful you are. If you will be on the internet, better have something.

Personally, Id stick with NIS. Not only for its definition based scans, but SONAR to detect new or unknown therats before they get you. Plus Spyware and Anti-SPAM.
Its actually one of the lightest suites out there considering all it does. Ive been running it for years on several PCS and haven't had a infection yet, although some Warnings and Quarantines have popped up.

I too have tried MSE and couldn't really see a performance difference between it and NIS. Perhaps some setups would? Not sure.
But being you can get it for a discount at Amazon for 25-30$ or so per year, I found it was really worth it for the extra features.

Either way, if you do not like it try something different.
But please, do not go without anything if you will be connected to and surfing the net.

whs · 31 Dec 2012

But being you can get it for a discount at Amazon for 25-30$ or so per year, I found it was really worth it for the extra features.

I got a few for free (only sales tax). Sometimes the big electronics chains (BestBuy, Staples, etc.) have an ad in the Sunday paper where you can get NIS for $69.95 with a $70 MIR - so in fact you only pay the sales tax and 4 weeks later you get your money back - if you mail in the MIR.

M1GU31 · 31 Dec 2012

I suggest just getting a free alternative,better to have something then nothing. I use comodo internet security premium free and works extremely well for me. Has a free firewall/av combo. Totally recommend using it since there firewall is really good and there anti virus is pretty good also. Been using it for over 3 months and it has protected my pc from a couple threats and malicious sites and is successful at removing/blocking threats.

Also not really demanding at all on my systems, running it on my other older machine with xp and a pentium 4 with 1.5gb ram with no slow downs what so ever.

They have a paid version which gives some more features but there free version is really good and better then most free alternatives imho.

Free Internet Security - Download Internet Security Software Suit

IoNGeNeRaL · 01 Jan 2013

Bitdefender Total Security 2013 and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware works perfectly fine for me. :)

MadSupra354 · 01 Jan 2013

pincushion said:

Free anti-virus is fine if it indeed does the job but if you can afford a computer ....

That's true, it's not like I don't have the money for one. I could keep my money if I had MSE, since I'm not likely to download something malicious. In the 4 years I had Norton, I barely downloaded 10 viruses.

pincushion · 01 Jan 2013

MadSupra354 said:

pincushion said:

Free anti-virus is fine if it indeed does the job but if you can afford a computer ....

That's true, it's not like I don't have the money for one. I could keep my money if I had MSE, since I'm not likely to download something malicious. In the 4 years I had Norton, I barely downloaded 10 viruses.

I must be doing something different then since in the more than 10 years with Norton I have had none - and as I said I do run as admin with UAC disabled on W7. I don't play games or do P2P file-sharing but not a saint elsewhere though. I guess whatever works for one ...

Wishmaster · 01 Jan 2013

I believe Im not alone when I say, the Free version of Malwarebytes for a periodic manual scan is a very good idea regardless what AV you choose.

In regards to MadSupra354 comment about 10 viruses, Id probably be somewhere in that ballpark myself.

And by that I mean its blocked a couple websites on me or warned me to stop due to severl reports. Its also thrown up a couple messages in the past about a malicious attempt to attack, which it indeed blocked. And a couple times Sonar has went off stopping something it said was "suspicious"

Of course this over 3 PCs, and I do recall 1 false positive. That was a patcher for LA Noire, and if I recall it was SONAR that grabbed it. They fixed it though soon after.

Pincusion, if you look in NIS logs there very well may be some of these types of activities it has blocked and you missed the message or NIS just thought it wasn't important enough to bug you about. So it just took care of buisiness and left you alone. It does that sometimes for whatever reason, but usually just over small things.

pincushion · 02 Jan 2013

Wishmaster said:

I believe Im not alone when I say, the Free version of Malwarebytes for a periodic manual scan is a very good idea regardless what AV you choose.

In regards to MadSupra354 comment about 10 viruses, Id probably be somewhere in that ballpark myself.

And by that I mean its blocked a couple websites on me or warned me to stop due to severl reports. Its also thrown up a couple messages in the past about a malicious attempt to attack, which it indeed blocked. And a couple times Sonar has went off stopping something it said was "suspicious"

Of course this over 3 PCs, and I do recall 1 false positive. That was a patcher for LA Noire, and if I recall it was SONAR that grabbed it. They fixed it though soon after.

Pincusion, if you look in NIS logs there very well may be some of these types of activities it has blocked and you missed the message or NIS just thought it wasn't important enough to bug you about. So it just took care of buisiness and left you alone. It does that sometimes for whatever reason, but usually just over small things.

He said downloaded, so I presume he had issues with them. I regularly check the NIS log and usually know when I should particularly have a look so I know it regularly blocks stuff. As I said, I have never been infected so NIS is doing what all good anti-malware does and is effective. With a bit of taming I find NIS is not too resource heavy - not any more than the OS if you do not do the same for that.