Anti-virus software

Kevster

Hi,

How many of you actually use anti-virus software on your PCs? I have not been using any for around 1 year now and have only received one viral infection during that time; and I managed to easily get rid of it myself just by knowing how viruses exploit the registry settings, startup programs, etc.

Simply put: If you have been using computers for your whole life like I have, then I don't think anti-virus software is necessary. I DO have OCD though... ...which means I like to know about everything happening on my PC at any one time (which helps!)... ...:p

BoB_BoT

how do you know you don't have a virus? spyware, adware, grayware etc? I'd consider myself informed, suspicious and careful enough not to get a virus, know how to browse safely, but that's me. The majority of people that use computers are uneducated with regards to net safety, what not to click, what sites not to browse. Even though you know where not to go, if you're doing more than just browsing youtube, social network sites, dictionary sites, you're more than likely to hit a page that's infected with something (not necessarily known to the site owner), a simple misclick on some sites can be popup hell. Most operating systems are susceptible to vulnerabilities, some more-so than others (*cough* windows *cough*), a missed patch, a rampant virus, sometimes your own knowledge isn't good enough compared to that of a virus scanner and it's abilities to scan files for virus patterns. Take trojans for example, pretend to be one thing, doing another. How would you know a piece of software you downloaded didn't contain one?

There are hundreds of thousands of zombies out there, you could be one of them and you wouldn't know. Bluntly, better safe than sorry imo. If you use your pc for word processing, browsing "safe" websites, graphic design, whatever, not too internet heavy, you in all likelihood would be fine. If you're downloading attachments from emails, browsing questionable sites, downloading questionable files, you'd best have an antivirus. By no means am i saying that an anti-virus is perfect, but there's plenty of free ones out there that aren't resource heavy.

Also you mention you had 1 infection, by the sounds of it only a minor one if it didn't feck you up too much. Though, if you had an antivirus you probably would have avoided that 1 infection?
Just my thoughts on it.

And yes, I use an antivirus, firewall and spyware program. I'm much happier being paranoid about my computer and data than leaving it to chance.

Kevster

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. This one virus wouldn't actually have been prevented by the common anti-virus software because it's one that they are yet to catch-up with. I cannot remember what it was called exactly, but the exe it used was something like c911.exe

Plus, I guess I know that I haven't had any other malware on my machine because I regularly look at the processes which are running at any one time on the machine (and know each of them) and I also look at a system scan performed by a program called HiJackThis. I'm sure you're familiar with this program..

Overheal

I ran a computer with no substantial protection for over a year on boradband, never got infected. That said the build struggled from hardware related BSODs :pac:

BoB_BoT

nope don't know of a virus of that name, saying that I don't know any virus other than a re-offenders I constantly see customers pcs. you can thank certain p2p programs for them.
Yup I know hijack this well, have to when doing repairs. But at the same time, I couldn't be bothered checking my own pcs logs repeatedly, too much to be doing than constantly checking logs (I know you said you have OCD, but other people would not do that, they can just be about arsed enough to hit "install updates" button for the windows updater). I'm not agreeing 100% with what you say regarding no anti-virus, it's the things that don't hide in the processes that can get ya, the boogeyman virus as such :P

All I'm saying is that, antivirus companies make money from virus, it's their job to do keep on top of new virus. Perhaps you could put your OCD to better use, perhaps learn to program, bring out your own av maybe
there's money in it apparently

Ok, Ok, putting the learned computer users aside, (and I know the question was in relation to boards users), the average computer users solution to most problems is to turn it on and off again. Why? because they don't know better, they don't want to know, other things to be doing. They don't want to learn what's good/bad for the computer, so you need something to do it for them, in step the antivirus companies, cheers for your 40euro a year, we'll do that. Done and done

Also one other thing, they're certainly needed for shared computers, you can never trust other users. :P

Fuzzy Clam

Kevster. Have you,or would you consider to, run a full AV scan to see if anything has escaped your attention and post the results here. This might prove your point, not that I would recommend this to anyone else.

Kevster

hehe, no, because I am certain that there is no virus or malware on my machine. I even manually search the registry for stuff and basically look in every nook and cranny for out of place files (it's all part of my OCD). By the way, I only mentioned that I amen't running anti-virus software. I still have a firewall in operation and regularly run a program called CCleaner.

tibor

Kevster wrote: »

Plus, I guess I know that I haven't had any other malware on my machine because I regularly look at the processes which are running at any one time on the machine (and know each of them) and I also look at a system scan performed by a program called HiJackThis. I'm sure you're familiar with this program..

Just because you don't see anything suspicious in the process list/files/registry etc doesn't mean your machine is not infected.

</pedant>

Overheal

you could always try running through the FAQ in the Virus and Malware Removal forum.

Capt'n Midnight

rootkit anyone ?