What do you recommend for anti-virus software?

I've been using Norton that came with my computer when I bought it a few years ago. Last year I belatedly noticed the amount charged on my credit card for Norton's subscription's auto-renewal was quite large. I think it was because they automatically upgraded my service to Norton 360 for multiple devices. Well, I only have this one computer and I'm not using any of its additional services besides basic anti-virus protection. I've turned off auto-renewal.

I've got a couple of months left for the current subscription. At first I was planning to just buy and install a basic Norton Antivirus after I unintstall the current Norton 360. But you know, I'm still pissed that they did a bait and switch on me.

So I'm open to recommendations to try a different antivirus program. Again, I don't need anything fancy like VPN or password management. Just anti-virus and malware protection. What are you using now and has it been good for you?

 

None. Windows 10s built in defender works fine just don't go to silly dumb risky sites.

 

Don't use any

What you do want to do when/if you notice you've got some virus, like changing all your google search links etc. is to download programs like AdwCleaner and TDSSKiller to scan and remove stuff from your PC.

Peronsally after I'ev used them I uninstall them again and only reinstall when I need to use them (I'm on Windows 7 and over 12 years has basically had to restore PC just a handful of times, and probably only two or three times because of virus.)

And I've only had to completely reset my PC once, so the other restores I lost almost no data.

 

Like the one above me said, windows defender works just fiiine. But if you want a really secure way to browse the net, then just get yourself a deepfreeze or a virtualbox, so you visit website all the way you want to.

 

I use the free version of Avast antivirus. It has worked well so far for me.

 

not everyone uses Microsoft so Defender isn't always an option but most newer OS have something built in automatically. I use Webroot on my desktop.

 

i personally am a regular customer of kaspersky lab, I'm currently using internet security teir. I usually sign up for 3 years at once. (I know it's not cheap.)
I used to manually find rootkits and removing them before using kaspersky. But over since the days of manually finding root kits from a hell lots of background process and services.

Not sure, personally I'm using one, but if your torrenting using a good antiviral is essential. Private torrent will save you money in the long run anyway. So your essentially better using a good antiviral while visiting dumb risky sites.

Scans are not antiviral, or security. Usually scans don't work well on rootkits, so your back in the early 2000s where manually search for rootkits with a type of rootkit revealer are the norms.

Free antiviral are usually act as bloatware in your PC, they do nothing and just slowdown your PC and took up space. Your better using windows security (default no antiviral). And their pop-up and ads for their paid plans are usually annoying.

If your miss the days of manually finding rootkits on windows xp or windows Vista, I recommend ice-sword anti rootkits.
Writen in 2005 is still used in many of the high security machines where going online connection to the internet is just not possible, in order to prevent data leaks.
Though it have stopped updating since 2007, since by then most antivirals provides a friendly ways of removing rootkits. But it still works, as it's done by removing manually it there is no need for updates.

Though good luck on using tens and twenty of tools and deleting and cleaning your disk for hours every weeks, if you want to roll back to windows 7 and before, to the Era of windows xp and Vista. Though I some how miss the old times.

 

remember fighting irc worms ... nasty times

 

I use Eset internet Security, it saved my device many times.

 

The default one that comes with windows is good enough, you can also add the free malwarebytes on top for added protection (not the paid full AV) and do scans once in a while.

If you really want to know what the best of the best aka that 0.1-2% difference matters to you, then BitDefender is probably the safest choice on average (Track record wise).

Overall, I suggest this website that gives you a breakdown of how well each AV fairs:

https://www.av-comparatives.org/comparison/

Of course the most safest option is going Linux

I wouldn't say they are more bloated, if you go to the performance test option and look at impact score. Even the free ones have less impact score than the built in one. But some of them being annoying with popups and all is true.

The reputation of them being more bloated then the MS one is mostly from the fact that MS is usually first to take advantage of their own new OS features. So when windows 10 came out for example, it took a while for the AVs to catch up with the new OS features. But these days, pretty much everyone takes less impact on the system than the MS one. The only thing is, the built in OS one is generally good enough for 99% of people.

 

OK. Thanks, guys. I do have MS Defender running in the background of Norton. I'll just let Norton expire then. I don't do any torrenting. My surfing is fairly tame.

 

Bitdefender has 90-day trial links available. In the past you could use these to endlessly extend your subscription, but they recently fixed that. Now you have to create a new account instead - so if you used it on 5 devices (limit per trial license), you'll have to relogin on these 5 devices, 4.1 times a year. Big inconvenience, I know.

 

back in the days i had a norton version that took up to 30% CPU usage (idle) and 50% RAM since than its a red flag for me
right now i go with COMODO

 

While I was surfing around youtube, I came across this. What a coincidence.

 

The video upload is still living it the early and late 2000s. As he is still believing in scanner and cleaner instead of sandbox based real time antivirus. Back in the days PC only have single core and dual cores so it's not possible and real-time antivirus sucks, now most Compute start with quad-core and with ssd. It's more than enough for real time antiviral without feels of lagging.

Today when antivirus detected a existing malware in database it simply deleted and replace the bad block with good block when it's possible. If the malware is not in the data base it basically sent to headquarters and analyse then added to database. Like how the zeroday malware developed by Pentagon's is been sent to kaspersky lab headquarters in Russia. And kaspersky is banned in America for "spying".

So why did antivirus need to sent files to headquarters to anysis before adding to database instead of adding them directly? It is to prevent antivirus stopping good softwares like keygens and cracks, it improves the need for turning off antivirus and greatly improved user experience. Not all files behave like a virus are virus

antivirus work kinda like sci-hub.
Similarly, if you search a book in sci-hub that is existing in database it just give you the book in database. If you search a book that is not in database, sci-hub will fech the book from official sites with a number of login ID or keys it have and upload the file to database and give it to you. Hence you always get your documents and books in sci-hub.

Antivirus is essential if you watch anime with nyaa.si, anidex.moe.
Hence if your visiting those sites for your waifu or research martial you should get a antivirus anyway.

The Upload is also trying to say that, antivirus do stop rootkits (root access means administrator privileges) but in the process your giving root access to the antiviral. Saying that whats the point of removing rootkits when your giving root access to third part software like antivirus.
But the thing is that, softwares like steam, epic game, Microsoft outlook, Adobe CC, and many many other softwares have root access, root access is normal, your supposed to stop unwanted root access not stopping any root access.

Home use local Antivirus don't simulate a large zip file and crash, those are the issues of Google drive and dropbox download, where a file is too big it don't scan.
Home use local antivirus only scan the directory your currentlly working on. Which should be a few KB or a few MB if you have tons of PDF or Doc file.
And antivirus don't excuse a large excutable files in the background before you open them. Antiviral usually only execute files a few lines of codes before the windows, and terminate the code when it detects misbehaving codes.

edit: as for large image files, windows don't execute image files, windows will mount the image files first as some thing similar to a separate partition, and antiviral only sandbox the directory your using in that saparate partition. It will never overruns.

Yeah, it's hard to get use to real-time antivirus when you got use to scanner base, cleaner based, revealer based software. But, as I said long gone the times when you run a scanner everyday before your PC shutdown, with 20 over tools for maintaining, and frequently fresh install of OS.
We are in the era of free to torrent with out care of viral.

--<br/>--

Why linux is safer?
As for Linux, there are still malware, but lesser viruses. Malware are malicious software but also stands for malfunction software, in Linux most of those are unintentionally from the author and the user, as a same app image can work differently on different distribution and builds of Linux. A appimage corrupting the operating system are common. Like I lost count of how many time I have to reinstall Linux to get get timeshift to work, timeshift is a malware.
Remember, a lots of programs/apps in Linux are written by monkeys. They are usually full of bugs, crashing, corrupt your files, or worst corrupt your OS.

As for why Linux are safer, because most appimage of Linux run with fuse. And most of your files can get dirrectly from debian servers example getting a YouTube video Downloader.

Code:

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl

See that sudo? That's giving it root access, I just install a YouTube video Downloader to the root folders. But it's generally safe as apt-get is dirrectly from OS distrobuter.
Just like if you only get your softwares from Microsoft store and not from the web, your safe.
But if you install some random software from the web with sudo commends in front, your as exposed as windows.

Also, most Linux users install files with higher file system like docker. And with a OS like Linux, users are more likely to backup their files. Hence impact less when their system files corrupts.

--<br/>--

Why windows don't use files system like Linux.
Seriously, why would anyone read hours of documentation before clicking the install button. Oh Linux don't even have that install button (install.exe) you have to use CLI to install anything or you have to compile your own installation compilers.
Windows is doom if it ever implemented files like Linux.

As for Android, you have to ADB from windows or mac to install programs to root. Can android ADB them selfs or can one android device ADB another android device?
Imaging you need to use another device and another OS just to install some thing like Java to run minecraft on windows.

 

Pretty sure the reason why Kaspersky is banned in government computers is because why would any country give full access to their stuff?

An appimage corrupting the OS is pretty rare. I mean it pretty much runs everything in a container. The only time things can get dicey is if you have the appimage and non-appimage version but not using the .home folder. Then the difference in both versions would be a problem.

That said, somethings don't work that well in an appimage precisely because due to their isolating nature. You definitely don't want to run timeshift from an appimage. Linux Mint comes with timeshift and it works well there.

Bugs and crashing happens everywhere, but unless your software goes deep into the OS, it breaking things is unlikely.

The only thing I can think that "may" break things is if you replace a dependency. But most package managers will warn you.

Pretty sure most linux distributions come with package managers that let you install stuff without using the CLI. As for portable code, most as mentioned have an appimage option. You only need to compile stuff if you plan to compile from source, and often times compiling things from source is more annoying on windows then on linux.

 

Maybe I just suck at GTK or anything close to systemd. Anyway kernel panic of death is more horrifying than windows bluescreen of death for me.

 

I think the best option in your case is to just stick to Microsoft defender and only occasionally install and run a malware detection software. I presume you mostly use your computer to browse the internet right? Usually browsers have low security settings so you'll notice that with time, your computer will lag and you'll get popups out of nowhere. That's when anti-malware software become handy. What I do is that I install malware bytes (the free version is sufficient) about once every few months, then run a full scan to clean my computer. If my computer is clean I uninstall it and stick to Microsoft defender.
The reason why I don't keep malware bytes installed is that it interferers with my work (I write code and sometimes I need to modify my security settings, that's why). Also, I recommend installing an ad-blocker in your browser and clearing your browser cookies\cache from time to time to avoid any malicious trackers.

 

I love Malware Bytes. Second year I bought the pro version and I think that its really worth it.

 

This. What W10 doesn't stop or your browser gets invaded by dubious cookies Malwarebytes got your back baby.