What are Anti-Virus Developers Protecting us From?

Miscellaneous Topics
#1

I have been a Windows user since Windows 98. I have used pretty much every single anti-virus that ever existed but what exactly are they protecting us from?

I have had this Laptop for around 7 month now, admittedly I have 100’s of movies and dozens of games that I have “acquired” through various activities. I won’t lie, most of us do it.

But what is my Anti-Virus doing?

Fuck all, I have not had a Virus on this laptop since the day I got it.

My GF has a PC, she has had it for 3 years and she downloads stuff like there is no tomorrow, I have used Free and Paid Anti-virus, Norton/McAfee just slowed down anything they got put on, I moved over to AVG/Avast!

None of these Anti-virus have ever found a Virus, ever.

The few times in the past I have had a Virus, the Anti-Virus never even done a thing. You know one of those ones that happens to embed itself in your system tray.

So what exactly does Anti-Virus even do? Does it just bloat our PCs now? Or are they actually doing something? Are viruses as common as they were 10 years ago?

Are the people developing this software getting paid for nothing?

Your views…

#2

They are, in fact, a massive con. The only AV checker you ever need is MS Security Essentials on Windows. Everything else is either selling fear or misguidedly unhelpful.

Cas :slight_smile:

#3

Agree.

MSSE overlooks many of threats

#4

Anti-virus are a waste of resources, I never used one while I was using Windows (from Windows 3.0 to XP), and I never used one now that I use a Mac.
What worked for me for years with Windows was the use a good firewall and a restricted user account for working, and never use the admin account directly but with the execute as option when needed.

#5

I don’t have any anti virus installed either :smiley:

I remember having anti-virus virus program, that wouldn’t allow you to do anything except open explorer and would say that if you run something it would damage your computer memory (info loss) and that you had to buy the full version which cost 50$ to remove that virus which didn’t even exist.

That is one time I had a real virus. Maybe I’m currently typing and someone is seeing what I’m typing, but I doubt it.

#6

Just for good measure, you may as well insult them.

But yeah, I feel as if when I install and Anti-Virus program, I am installing a virus that brings in a whole lot of malware.

The only time it ever flags something is a crack for a game, which is a false positive.

#7

Proof of how much of a con they are, was when a very large AV vendor whitelisted a rootkit from a large music retailer. Because they ask nicely.

#8

There is that yes. The real thing though is that they are always somewhat behind the actual viruses that are in the wild doing damage, because they don’t know about them yet. Which rather renders them pointless. That, and the fact they throw up false positives all over the place, eventually either crippling your user experience of your machine and causing you to switch it off or simply ignore it.

Cas :slight_smile:

#9

I also think that we don’t need any antivirus, but am scared not to use one. So I just use free AVG on Windows 8.1

#10

Just add some nice firewall so they cant call home without permission.
Its what i have been doing for several years now.
If you are paranoid, just disable everything except a white list of applications, some clicking at the start but you will immediately notice something strange popping up.

#11

Good to know I am not the only one thinking it is a big con.

I do believe it is somewhat good for people who might not be computer literate, or as computer literate as us.

For example my poor 55 year old dad, he seems to get a hella lot of virus like problems that frankly I am sick of fixing. I just accuse him of watching too much porn :stuck_out_tongue:

Just a few weeks ago, I was visiting and he was showing me this tv streaming program he was overly chuffed about, as we do not have sat/cable tv in that area…should have seen the amount of crap that it installed on his laptop. I was actually shocked.

#12

I agree that MSSE is all that you need. That being said, I would caution against claiming any kind of moral superiority on never getting a virus.

I’ve only gotten one once (that I know of). It was some vulnerability about 7-10 years ago where just even viewing a malicious image in the browser would be enough to get infected.

If something that serious comes along again, there’s not much that can be done to stop it and you’ll be hoping that MSSE is doing its job.

#13

Yeah its a weird thing. I never encounter viruses (or at tops a couple in 20 years), but some people I know with little computer experience somehow end up with a computer breaking down from a bewildering variety of viruses (ironically even though they have a virus scanner installed). Must have something to do with recognizing the difference between dangerous files / emails and safe ones, a skill that is far from trivial (I suspect most users wont really understand the difference between a text file and an executable).

So yeah, I’m not so sure about the value of virus scanners but I would not take yourself as an example of the typical computer user and draw conclusions based on that.

#14

It’s most likely something like that. My brother, who knows next to nothing about computers got every computer in the house, except mine which runs *nix, infected with a virus that spread across the network. Just from downloading something online through affluent or something and of course clicking the wrong thing.

#15

For us proud people who kinda know about add block and how that Arabian price does in fact not want to give you his fortune, AV is more of a hindrance then anything else.

All I have used is MSE and since then have never had issues. The occasional false positive but other then that no problems. I like MSE as it gives you a nice not so heavy bit of protection whilst not taking up much resources. I have tried a great many others and all have used huge ram and basically sandboxed the OS.

#16

I worked with IT support last years and its time for me to tell you all the truth.

Mccafee doesnt work.PERIOD.
Norton is Meh.
Avast is meh but its free.Same for avg.If u use one of them with another anti malware, its yay.

I use kaspersky Pure 3.0.Used internet security before… Dude, its awesome.
No virus whatsoever.After i installed i ran some checks with another antiviruses to check if kaspersky was really working and it is.

Just fine.

#17

The first sentence to come out of a sales mans mouth :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh, Kaspersky Pure costs £34.99!

I kid lol.

#18

The free ones are next to useless, and the cause of 95% of my customers with simple installation woes.

Cas :slight_smile:

#19

Venn diagram from xkcd

#20

I use Avast and Malwarebytes, and they seem to do the trick for me

Although I’m pretty sure the best anti virus is Common Sense 2014 :slight_smile: