What free antivirus do you use?

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ccookie66 · #1 Post by **ccookie66** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 6:50 am

I use Avast Free 6.0 currently on my ThinkPad T40. What do you use?

#2 Post by **Harryc** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 7:03 am

This has been done before...several times.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=93234

jdk · #3 Post by **jdk** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 2:39 pm

Maybe I'm just naive, but I never run antivirus on my Windows systems.

ccookie66 · #4 Post by **ccookie66** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 6:56 pm

jdk wrote:Maybe I'm just naive, but I never run antivirus on my Windows systems.

Wow, really?

http://news.cnet.com/2100-7349_3-5313402.html It doesn't take every long before your computer could get infected. (unless your running Linux

)

Colonel O'Neill · #5 Post by **Colonel O'Neill** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:39 pm

Windows 7 is quite resilient to infection this time around, but it never hurts to run another AV.

For free AV, I'd use Avira. For paid, I'd go with Kaspersky.

jdk · #6 Post by **jdk** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:59 pm

ccookie66 wrote:
Wow, really? http://news.cnet.com/2100-7349_3-5313402.html It doesn't take every long before your computer could get infected. (unless your running Linux )

The performance hit isn't worth it for me. I browse the web with NoScript, don't use flash, don't pirate anything, and don't run as administrator (which needs a password) anyway.

I tried Avast a few years ago, and it completely hosed my system during an update.

ccookie66 · #7 Post by **ccookie66** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 11:10 pm

Avast free 6.0 is one of the lightest AV around now. Right now its only using 6,644 K. on my system.

http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.p ... antivirus/

ozzymud · #8 Post by **ozzymud** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:31 am

Posted this in some other thread here... but, Avast is it for now. But, do a custom install... ALL you really need if you use anti-virus at all is the file shield... no matter whether the file comes from the web, an e-mail, or through an IM... it is a FILE on your system eventually... no need for it to watch me browse or check my emails... If I save or access a FILE on my machine it catches it. (If your really in the know, disable the resident portion, then use context menus on all files downloaded)

EDIT: Oh, btw... dunno how someone got it running in 6MB memory... currently mine at uptime of 10 days is:

AvastSvc.exe = 22MB
AvastUI.exe = 24MB

6MB versus 46MB... big difference

But 4GB (ALL in use, yes even the 892MB XP don't see), so 3.2GB I have 2.2GB free atm.. that's with Thunderbird, Firefox(44tabs), a 512MB VM running. So who cares how much memory something uses if you have free memory.

#9 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:16 am

It's not free, but I use Avira AntiVir Premium.

killer · #10 Post by **killer** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 11:38 am

My neighbours told me their internet connection was really slow. I took my machine to their house and used their connection. It was really fast for me.
So I recommended they remove all their MacAfee stuff and use MSSE instead.

They hesitated for a couple of days and then did what I had said. The result is they now have high-speed internet access.

MSSE is free and doesn't interfere.

dr_st · #11 Post by **dr_st** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 1:01 pm

Of all these, the only thing I've ever used is MSE.

I have a hard time believing these figure "PCs compromised in 20 minutes", or more accurately, that an antivirus is the answer. All antivirus software I know reports whenever it finds something it suspects as malware. As I run antivirus software, wouldn't it mean that on average I would receive a notification or at least a log message somewhere every 20-40 minutes saying that the software caught something? I very rarely get such notifications at all.

Gone are the pre-XP SP1/SP2 days where all ports were open by default, and any exploit could bring your system down withing minutes. Nowadays, Windows is much smarter, Windows firewall is much better, and not to mention that many of us are behind routers, which also provide a somewhat reasonable (though not unbreakable) natural level of security.

That is not to say that one shouldn't run any antivirus software at all, merely that the consequences are not as severe or as immediate as one would be led to believe. Personally I survived for a few years without any antivirus software, but eventually got hit with something really really bad (had I not been doing regular backups, the results would have required me to completely reinstall everything on about 3 different PCs). Now I run it just to be safe, since machines are more than sufficiently powerful to handle it.

jdk · #12 Post by **jdk** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 1:54 pm

dr_st wrote: That is not to say that one shouldn't run any antivirus software at all, merely that the consequences are not as severe or as immediate as one would be led to believe. Personally I survived for a few years without any antivirus software, but eventually got hit with something really really bad (had I not been doing regular backups, the results would have required me to completely reinstall everything on about 3 different PCs). Now I run it just to be safe, since machines are more than sufficiently powerful to handle it.

There is an old saying, "Security is a process, not a product." People who put all of their trust in a single software program to handle it for them are probably doing it wrong. House analogy: you don't just pay for an intruder alarm system and then leave the doors open when you leave for vacation. You take many steps to ensure the doors and windows are locked, the guns and jewelry are locked in safes, etc. Same thing goes for PC security...by default deny everything and then only allow trusted services / applications at each level. The first line of /etc/pf.conf in my router is "block all." As to antivirus software, from my own experience, I've had my system ruined by using free antivirus software. That was to the point of having to reinstall everything thanks to the program updating itself; that was three years ago, and judging from a quick Google search for that product, it is still happening in 2011. In other words, I've been hit worse by using an antivirus program than any malware has done in the past 10 years. I'm down to one Windows system in my home, and in my opinion, it runs better without antivirus, but still with appropriate security measures in place.

ozzymud · #13 Post by **ozzymud** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:56 pm

dr_st wrote:Of all these, the only thing I've ever used is MSE.

I don't like how MS Security Essentials insists on enabling auto updates, I run my system with only services enabled I need, for this reason I find it too bulky.

dr_st wrote:Windows firewall is much better, and not to mention that many of us are behind routers, which also provide a somewhat reasonable (though not unbreakable) natural level of security.

If you are behind a router, a software firewall is not even needed, you are already running a software firewall IN your router (install if your able Tomato or dd-wrt if you really want more control over it).

jdk wrote:and judging from a quick Google search for that product, it is still happening in 2011

Which AV is that?

Also another thing that i hate about most anti-virus apps is how they flag perfectly harmless files as threats and MOVE them to a vault... finds things like the following link as Riskware.Win32.Gun!A2, W16/Winshoot... THIS FILE IS NOT A THREAT, run it, click your screen, press ESC to exit... just fun

(16-bit app dated September 18, 2003, might not run on Vista+) http://conradshome.com/files/stressed.exe

jotti.org shows it to be what it is, a joke program, used to be fun to copy it into peoples startup group.. amazing how many people don't try hitting ESC to exit it

dr_st · #14 Post by **dr_st** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 10:43 pm

ozzymud wrote:If you are behind a router, a software firewall is not even needed, you are already running a software firewall IN your router (install if your able Tomato or dd-wrt if you really want more control over it).

A software firewall is good on your laptop at least, since that machine is likely to move out of your network from time-to-time and you cannot trust any network as much as you trust your home network. My policy for a long time has been to only run software firewalls on laptops. But at some point I started running it on every computer, because Windows firewall is typically invisible, quiet and does not consume noticeable resources, so why not.

ozzymud · #15 Post by **ozzymud** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 7:41 am

Yea, I agree on the laptop firewall, but on my desktops I prefer every ounce of power I can squeeze out of it... I like only having 16 processes running when I boot up

And when it comes to a software firewall + uTorrent... I'll pass when I can.

dr_st · #16 Post by **dr_st** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 8:31 am

Well, I've been running uTorrent behind software firewalls for years, and it's been doing fine.

I understand your reasoning about desktop power, I just don't think I would notice any difference.