Hello all,
About a year and a half ago, I made this thread:
http://www.computerforums.org/forum...r-security/antivirus-necessary-me-226788.html
I started to question the necessity of antivirus for an average user, as even Avast! was getting quite bloated and somewhat intrusive.
Today (03-01-2017) marks two years since I removed Avast! from my laptop, which I use every day to browse the web, read e-mail, download and play music, and preform work related tasks.
Since then I've removed it from all of the other computers I use on a daily to weekly basis. Even windows defender is disabled. These systems ranged from measly Pentium 4's to my gaming computer with a Q6700 quad core. On all of them I've noticed better responsiveness, no annoying popups, and no viruses.
I just completed my weekly scan on my laptop with Malwarebytes free edition, and Spybot Search & Destroy. Both of them came back clean.
This isn't for everyone, since 2015 I've eliminated a lot of web activities that would have made this experiment riskier, such as torrenting, SVN, and lua in general. I've been distancing myself from the IT field as of recent (not necessary) so most of these things became redundant for me anyways.
I'm happy with the results though, and for now, Avast! is staying uninstalled. (And my post count is no longer 666!)
About a year and a half ago, I made this thread:
http://www.computerforums.org/forum...r-security/antivirus-necessary-me-226788.html
I started to question the necessity of antivirus for an average user, as even Avast! was getting quite bloated and somewhat intrusive.
Today (03-01-2017) marks two years since I removed Avast! from my laptop, which I use every day to browse the web, read e-mail, download and play music, and preform work related tasks.
Since then I've removed it from all of the other computers I use on a daily to weekly basis. Even windows defender is disabled. These systems ranged from measly Pentium 4's to my gaming computer with a Q6700 quad core. On all of them I've noticed better responsiveness, no annoying popups, and no viruses.
I just completed my weekly scan on my laptop with Malwarebytes free edition, and Spybot Search & Destroy. Both of them came back clean.
This isn't for everyone, since 2015 I've eliminated a lot of web activities that would have made this experiment riskier, such as torrenting, SVN, and lua in general. I've been distancing myself from the IT field as of recent (not necessary) so most of these things became redundant for me anyways.
I'm happy with the results though, and for now, Avast! is staying uninstalled. (And my post count is no longer 666!)