would a free anti virus suffice for my gaming rig?

phillo74

Hey, im thinking of doing my first build over the coming months and I was wondering if using a free antivirus/firewall such as zone alarm/avast would be okay? I use them now on my laptop and they work fine.

ShadowHearth

I havent used any antivirus software for 7 years and the I only had a worm once, which I got wrid of with a help of iPhone goooogle.

If you are normal user and not going to te places where you get 100% some crap, then you can get away with free stuff or no antivirus at all.

Payton

If your online gaming or useing the net for anything of course you should have Anti virus software. One little virus could cause you a lot of hassle.
There are plenty of free anti virus software out there, have a look at the stickys.
Personally I use Avast.

Skerries

I use Microsoft Security Essentials which I know a lot of people do as it is actually a decent product from MS, Shock!!
it's not intrusive like some full priced packages and quietly sits in your tray

kirving

Complete waste of money IMO. I have Microsoft Security Essentials, and before that I had nothing for months. Countless people spend fortunes on AV every year, when they really have no need for it.

demanufactured

Microsoft security essentiels for anti virus.
You dont need zone alarm...your broadband router has a firewall built in.

The likes of zone alarm, black ice etc, were only useful back in the old dial up days when pcs all had public ip addresses.

Your machine is hidden behind your broadband router, which has a public ip but has a firewall of its own....and unless you have some crucial information that someone else really wants....nobody is looking to hack Into your system.

ShadowHearth

+1 on all the stuff lads said about ms and router stuff. They do a great job unless you do something really stupid yourself.


On that note: if someone will want to get in to your pc, then they will get in there no matter what antivirus you got.

deceit

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I havent used any antivirus software for 7 years and the I only had a worm once, which I got wrid of with a help of iPhone goooogle.

If you are normal user and not going to te places where you get 100% some crap, then you can get away with free stuff or no antivirus at all.

I would be the same as this with my gaming rig. I would install it every six months or so though just to do one full scan then remove it (never had a virus on a machine in my life).
All my other machines run AV but for years I would go without on them also.
I dont download torrents and wouldn't access websites where I wouldnt be fully happy about their integrity so generally dont worry about viruses on the machine.
I just make sure my firewall is set up proper with logging enabled.

phillo74

Skerries wrote: »

I use Microsoft Security Essentials which I know a lot of people do as it is actually a decent product from MS, Shock!!
it's not intrusive like some full priced packages and quietly sits in your tray

Cool,,that seams to be the most popular so I'll go with that! Cheerd

Serephucus

I use Avast, personally. I've tried MSE, but I find it uses quite a lot of resources. It can idle at 65MB+ of RAM, where as Avast uses about 10MB. I've also found that MSE will cause one or two of my CPU cores to spike to 100% usage for absolutely no reason at odd times.

One other minor thing is that the updates for MSE are handled through Windows update, so if you don't have it set to auto install them (I don't) then you have to go in and manually tell it to update them almost every bloody day. Avast does it automatically and give you nothing other than a quick auditory messege, where-as MSE will open its main window, etc.

Really though, I agree with Shadow - if you've got half a brain, you don't need anti-virus anything. I leave it there because it's not doing any harm, but if I had to pick one, I'd go with Avast again.

Kiith

I've used ZoneAlarm and AVG free for years now, and i've never had any issues. I occasionally get annoying popups when starting a game to allow it access to the net, but it's only a minor issue.

Paying for security software though...ugh! :pac:

Genghiz Cohen

Used zone alarm for about 6 months.
Eventually got sick of clicking "Yes, allow and remember" for every single thing I wanted to do online.
Every new game and app. It's complete overkill.

Avast does me fine now.
Problem is, you can't say that there are viruses that it isn't picking up.
Near daily updates are nice though.

Vicxas

I use Avast! Its pretty low profile and does the job quite well.

Unregistered.

Microsoft Security Essential hands-down. Very unobtrusive, easy set up, does everything right in my book.

JonB

Microsoft Security Essentials here as well. It's simple doesn't get in my way and does it's job grand. MSE and a bit common sense when it comes to using the internet and you should be grand. I hate all them suites you can get like Nortan or Kapersky. Any time I tried them they just seem to be bloat.

ED E

+1 for MSE.


PS: JonB, putting your rig in your sig like that is breaking site rules

JonB

ED E wrote: »

+1 for MSE.


PS: JonB, putting your rig in your sig like that is breaking site rules

Really? I'll remove it so. That isn't actually my rig. I wish it was. It's what I soon hope to build. I just put it in my sig for the meantime so I could come back to it and add/remove items to it.