Anti-virus, needed for advanced users?

[sscultima]

Basically just want your opinion on this.

I have this argument with my friends all the time

Personally i never use anti-virus, maybe once and a while ill install some form of anti-virus and run a full scan over all my drivers which never result in anything except some unknown programs that are false positives.

i honestly cannot remember the last time i got a virus... maybe some time on XP?

Basically i just want to see if you use anti virus (any form) and are you a experienced PC user or novice

i gave 2 options for vote choice incase you run more than 1 PC or MAC

 

[cl-scott]

I would say that it is a good idea to have one installed, even if you think you know what you're doing. There are plenty of 0-day threats out there, and while an AV program probably won't catch many of them, even one or two can be enough for it to earn its keep.

I do certainly think you will get more bang for the buck with behavioral changes, not using Internet Explorer, not using file sharing programs, not clicking on attachments claiming to be nude photos of some celebrity, etc. But sooner or later we all let our guards down in some fashion or another, so good to have something there to help prop us up a little when we do.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

There's an awful lot comes in via hijacked ads on legitimate websites.

 

[Hawkeye22]

^ +1

Even legitimate web sites can be hacked and made to infect visiting PC's.

 

[sscultima]

i guess ill add on to this discussion, since 3/3 experienced users have chosen they use anti-virus, people have also discussed that when you have anti-virus installed and use their computer via internet find they run in to infected files all the time but having not used anti-virus for some time then installing it scan and have no viruses.

I myself think it is a feel of protection so people are not as cautious when clicking happily online when they have anti-virus installed.

I will install a light weight anti-virus once and a while and spybot S&D to do a scan then i just delete them afterwards, sometimes S&D will pick up a couple things, nothing serious but that is it.

but again i only normally visit maybe 10 different web pages regularly and some others when im searching for answers to something or one time visits for downloading a program.

thoughts?

 

[cl-scott]

While you can make a false sense of security argument, you can just as easily turn around and say that if you don't have an AV program installed, how do you know if you are infected or not? Plenty of threats out there are really quite good about hiding, and making sure they do not impact performance or anything else to draw attention to themselves. So you kind of end up with the magic rock defense: "I have a magic rock that keeps tigers away." "There are no tigers in North America." "See how well it works?"

But some time you should install something like the NoScript extension for Firefox so you can see just how many different sites those 10 sites you frequent rely on.

These forums for example try and load scripts from no less than 17 domains besides the obvious tomshardware.com. If you count all the google owned domains as one, then you're down to 15. So, just by coming to the Tom's Hardware forums without using something like NoScript, you are loading content from at least 15 other sites. If any one of them is compromised, and malicious payloads added, it doesn't matter if the Tom's admins are top notch and keeps out all threats aimed at it directly. Malicious code could still slip in from one of those 15 other sites.

So, you pick almost any major site, there will be probably at least a dozen other sites where that site is pulling content from. Any one of which can be compromised and open the floodgates.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Firefox plus adblock plus and ghostery = smoooth sailing on tom's hardware

 

[sscultima]

Firefox plus adblock plus and ghostery = smoooth sailing on tom's hardware

i myself use adblock, nice addon, using for chrome though.

cl-scott, love that saying about the magic rock, makes sense. I find not using anti-virus and then installing it from time to time since it does not find anything i just leave it installed and then it starts catching things here and there. I don't know if im just downloading and just going click happy on all things i see, lol, but its odd to say the least.

The way i see if, If i get a virus, normally they are not all that harmful, depending on the function of it, if my PC goes boom i just re-install windows and wipe my hard drive, there is not anything on there that i can not re-install.

that is just me though, im sure many people have much more valuable data that they need to protect. I do however scan all my photos and videos of my family and store them on seperate hard drives so to keep them from getting infected and make them last, and just to be safe back up to two hard drives so if one fails.

but personally i don't use anti-virus because to me it is an in-convenience, i dont want to diable it when i play games, i also host different servers or files for family and to just make it easy leave everything off and have not had issues for years now.

I should however get some anti-virus installed since my step-mom got herself a laptop and comes over and connects to my wifi all the time, she is the kind of person that can get a virus by looking at the computer.... or phone... geez, lol.

I'm liking the input so far 😛