Henq wrote:
Baneleaf wrote:
I have to agree and disagree with Henq on this one. I am an IT tech as well, but I deal with all the fuck ups our users can dish out. If you are in the business of solving computer issues that no av is just fine. However, if you are unsure of yourself around a hard drive, or have kids that like to click on links, than AVG free, Adaware, Malwarebytes are all free and work very well. But yes, free is not free when it comes to music and porn, no one is going to send you 75 million US dollarz to hide from their home country, and if you think you need penis enlargement products, go see a doctor or a hooker, dont open email links for them.
Agreed. Definitely being aware of what to do, and not do, on the internet is the best solution.
Also, for those with kids or wives who cannot really be trusted with only downloading safe material, running virtual machines is always an option. Revert to snapshot ftw
4 or 5 years ago it had become a ritual to decrap my dad's computer every month. It was running WinXP. I'd clean it out, and a few weeks later he'd click on one of those forward of a forward of a forward jokes old people like to send to each other, and get infected with the virus du jour again.
Virtual Machines are awesome for sandboxing.
VirtualBox is another option besides VMWare, and I've been using that for a while with great success. Install another copy of Windows, or some flavor of Linux in the virtual machine, and use that for browsing/testing downloads. If using linux, no antivirus is required. If using Windows, keep a copy of the virtual hard drive file with a fresh Windows install. If you get infected, delete the virtual drive, and copy the fresh one back. Takes seconds.
Use the sandbox for testing questionable downloads, or porn browsing.
I'm with Henq in that the vast majority of security "products" are complete trash. Norton and Mcafee are the worst now- each of their security packages will eat anywhere from 200-400mb of RAM, constantly eat CPU power trying to update themselves or run redundant background scans, and pester you while trying to get something done. They'll slow the computer down just as much as most viruses would, and rarely be able to actually remove any infection that gets in. Once a virus runs and goes memory resident, it becomes very difficult for commercial antiviruses to remove, especially if it's a rootkit or infects any critical system files or drivers.