[Help] Choosing an Anti-Virus

[officemanager1]

Well to start with places like Google will often complain if you're about to be sent to a site reported as malicious. If you are, don't go there. If you must visit sites of an explicit nature, don't download any programs, activex controls or the like from them (even if there's instructions on the site telling you to!) Don't open and run any attachments in emails unless you're 100% sure they're legitimate, scan all programs you've downloaded before you run them regardless of source and ESPECIALLY if you've torrented the thing or downloaded something illegally. Where possible, download programs from reputable / trusted sources such as sourceforge, softpedia and so on.

That's only a few things, but they're really not that difficult to do in this day and age...

You must obviously know that by visiting web pages alone you can get viruses without downloading at all.
Without going in the technical side of things yes you are correct you can possibly be safe as you suggest but one thing you must not assume is that most people on this forum probably lack the knowledge and skills to avoid getting viruses and you must admit you are taking a big risk, no matter how good you are.
It is highly recommended you should use a security suit as you are exposed to the risks when surfing the net.
To everone, If you want to risk it go ahead but dont complain when you get a good infection that stuffs your PC up.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

AVG 9.0; All the way.

Allows you to ignore files on Resident Shield and Scan.
And you can disable any component at any time as well as remove notifications about it. Or remove any other notification for that matter.

This. I have been using AVG for years with excellent results.

 

[berry120]

You must obviously know that by visiting web pages alone you can get viruses without downloading at all.

If you're using an up to date, secure browser then this shouldn't be possible. This was a huge issue back in the days of IE6 but it's been a long time since I've heard a case of this happening (with an individual using an up to date, modern browser.) Things are a lot more secure nowadays and this really isn't too much of an issue anymore.

Without going in the technical side of things yes you are correct you can possibly be safe as you suggest but one thing you must not assume is that most people on this forum probably lack the knowledge and skills to avoid getting viruses and you must admit you are taking a big risk, no matter how good you are.
It is highly recommended you should use a security suit as you are exposed to the risks when surfing the net.
To everone, If you want to risk it go ahead but dont complain when you get a good infection that stuffs your PC up.

Geez, you make it sound like you could be blown up just by surfing to a dodgy website! No, I don't agree that I'm taking a big risk in the slightest. I'd actually flip that one on its head and say if you're in the position where you're taking no backups and as such if something happened to your PC it'd be disastrous - THAT'S the big risk situation. None of my data is actually stored on my windows box at all and it's all backed up frequently - so at the end of the day if a virus does trash the box I just need a couple of hours to reinstall windows, programs and get everything back up and running again. If my windows box was mission critical, couldn't be restored easily and / or stored lots of my data then things would most likely be different.

And of course, antivirus software is not sufficient in its own right. If you're still stupid about what you let through and run then it's not going to do anything at all - security is only as good as its weakest link!

Sure, running antivirus software is a good idea in a lot of situations I agree. But at the same time there's a lot of people that choose to run without it and are perfectly sensible for doing so. As long as your reasoning is well backed up and not along the lines of "I can't be bothered", chances are you're fine without.

 

[officemanager1]

If you're using an up to date, secure browser then this shouldn't be possible. This was a huge issue back in the days of IE6 but it's been a long time since I've heard a case of this happening (with an individual using an up to date, modern browser.) Things are a lot more secure nowadays and this really isn't too much of an issue anymore.

Geez, you make it sound like you could be blown up just by surfing to a dodgy website! No, I don't agree that I'm taking a big risk in the slightest. I'd actually flip that one on its head and say if you're in the position where you're taking no backups and as such if something happened to your PC it'd be disastrous - THAT'S the big risk situation. None of my data is actually stored on my windows box at all and it's all backed up frequently - so at the end of the day if a virus does trash the box I just need a couple of hours to reinstall windows, programs and get everything back up and running again. If my windows box was mission critical, couldn't be restored easily and / or stored lots of my data then things would most likely be different.

And of course, antivirus software is not sufficient in its own right. If you're still stupid about what you let through and run then it's not going to do anything at all - security is only as good as its weakest link!

Sure, running antivirus software is a good idea in a lot of situations I agree. But at the same time there's a lot of people that choose to run without it and are perfectly sensible for doing so. As long as your reasoning is well backed up and not along the lines of "I can't be bothered", chances are you're fine without.

Your Right!

What I was trying to say is that the average novice PC user would need a internet security suit and all the protection they need just to protect themselves.

Advance users can do what they like since they know what they are doing, and in your case you back up fully and take measures not to lose important files etc etc.

But majority PC users dont back up and when they get in trouble it is a nightmare for them and they scream blue murder for help.

My point was.... "Why risk it"

Cheers

 

[martin12]

I recently did a full reinstall and am debating which Anti-Virus to use. I was previously using McAffe until they instituted an update to idiot proof which took away the ability to disable automatic quartine and filescanning, and as a result it went through and deleted some files which was very annoying.

I'm to see which anti-virus a majority of you use. I'm looking for an anti-virus which provides protection but at the same time gives me the ability to disable notifications, automatic updates, and gives me the ability to ignore certain files it may deem as unsafe.

I think you should use AVG.. It has excellent results as I am using AVG with best protection support from last 1 year.

 

[AdvantageTech]

I would suggest Microsoft Security Essentials. Its free, really easy interface, and probably one of the best things Microsoft has come out with.

 

[Perth]

Using MSE but also thought Panda Cloud was nice

 

[cquinndesign]

NOD32 is definitely the best! You have to pay for it, but its light, efficient, doesn't use a lot of resources, and does not give you "false" positives all the time!

AVG is full of false positives, its so annoying!