People who choose not to have Antivirus

[Stev51]

Hi All

I am a member of many forums and often chat to many intelligent people and I am noticing more and more that people are not bothering with anti virus and don't seem to be having any problems as long as they are careful which sites they go on are there many in here without antivirus.

[Glenn]

I've never had a virus on a home computer but I still run anti-virus.

 

My house has never caught fire but I still have smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and insurance.

[joanie707]

Hmmmm, everyone I know who does any surfing at all has antivirus running.

I consider myself to be a very astute and careful person when on the wed and even with all the recommended programs

I ended up wirh a %$%@#$% virus and had to go through all the restoration.

I do hope that never occurs again ```

[Icedrake]

Dunno. Some people probably assume that getting malware on their computer is something that will never happen to them.

[razz]

Hi All

I am a member of many forums and often chat to many intelligent people and I am noticing more and more that people are not bothering with anti virus and don't seem to be having any problems as long as they are careful which sites they go on are there many in here without antivirus.

IMO, these people are just being very foolish. With the excellent freeware anti-virus programs available these days, why not install protection. Zero expense, just a few minutes of your time to install. Pretty good deal in my books!

[DennisD]

Hi All

I am a member of many forums and often chat to many intelligent people and I am noticing more and more that people are not bothering with anti virus and don't seem to be having any problems as long as they are careful which sites they go on are there many in here without antivirus.

 

They are either very lucky, or may have infections they know absolutely nothing about.

 

Not all malware announces it's presence on your computer. And if you have no way of scanning for nasties, then the quiet stealthy ones will just lay there quietly whilst passing your personal details to the world, or planning something equally devious, or worse.

 

It just isn't worth the risk. You could lose a music collection, irreplaceable photographs, banking details, or end up having to reinstall Windows at the very least, to solve some "strange" problem neither you nor anyone else can put their finger on.

 

Each to their own, but IMHO, very risky.

[razz]

They are either very lucky, or may have infections they know absolutely nothing about.

 

Not all malware announces it's presence on your computer. And if you have no way of scanning for nasties, then the quiet stealthy ones will just lay there quietly whilst passing your personal details to the world, or planning something equally devious, or worse.

Excellent point Dennis, I could not agree more.

[Corona]

Anti-viruses are silly. I don't have an Anti-virus app and I surf the internet with no probl

[Andavari]

Anti-viruses are silly. I don't have an Anti-virus app and I surf the internet with no probl

That may work fine for you and may very well be something you can do without if you're the only user of your computer.

 

With many computers being shared by a whole family one never knows where people may venture on the Internet, or what crap they may download and attempt to install making it an absolute necessity to protect the system. I do however think the day of having to pay for antivirus protection is long gone since there's good resident freeware antivirus protection.

[Glenn]

Anti-viruses are silly. I don't have an Anti-virus app and I surf the internet with no probl

Out of curiosity ... have you ever run an online scan to verify that you're clean?

[Tunerz]

I don't have an anti-virus, but I use other security software and do monthly online scans. Most of the time, the things I download are only security updates.

[tomcatonnet99]

well ...... I guess its Murphy's Law territory for the brave non-precuatious few...

[Matt_]

I don't have an anti-virus. Only Zone Alarm Firewall + Spyware Blaster.

 

Three years and no problems so far.

 

Some people are too much paranoid when it comes to security software.

[fireryone]

Yea some are too paranoid but most most have no idea and expect to be fine with nothing or cludgy norton since it came pre-installed.

Personally I just have antivir and builtin firewall in XP/Win7 anything else active seems a waste of ram.

[mr.brownstone]

On my own pc I dont run any anti virus app at all, but do online scans every now and then.

But on the laptop that the whole family shares I have AVG installed. As Andavari said it is another thing when you dont have control over what others do with it.

[DennisD]

Don't get me wrong here, I fully respect everyone's personal choice when it comes to what you do with your PC, and I imply no criticism in any way for the way you do that.

 

What I can't understand is the school of thought that decides that an Anti Virus isn't necessary, but has sufficient understanding of the risks involved to carry out on-line scans for malware.

 

The point that jumps out at me is .. your too late! Your on-line scan is only gonna tell you what you're computer is now infected with.

 

And if you follow some of the infections threads in Spyware Hell, or any other Malware Removal forum, some of the stuff out there now takes a hell of a lot to remove, and very soon, some will only be removable via the command line "Recovery Console".

 

Recovery Console - Recent trends appear to indicate that future infections will include attacks to the boot sector of the computer. The installation of the Recovery Console in the computer will be our only defense against this threat. For more information and steps to install the Recovery Console see This Article. Should you need assistance in installing the Recovery Console, please do not hesitate to ask.

 

Quote taken from Piriform Spyware Hell:

 

I just want to stress this point to any less experienced Internet Users who may be tempted to go in the direction of not using an Anti Virus package.

 

There are first rate freeware A/V's available, and with the amount of RAM in computers these days, the amount taken up by an A/V application is neither here nor there.

 

Of course, this is just MHO.

[Matt_]

The point that jumps out at me is .. your too late! Your on-line scan is only gonna tell you what you're computer is now infected with.

 

Moral of the story: use Sandboxie for porn.

[login123]

Couple of days ago, googled for a method to uninstall a game a poster had asked about here. Safe, normal, mundane sites, nothing on the wild side. In the middle of it Avast! went nuts. Ya gotta love that siren.

 

Point is, these were safe, normal sites, but there it was.

[ident]

On my laptop I have no AV or have done for 3 years. I use FF with noscript and netcraft. Which is my protection. But i only use trusted sites. And any thing suspect will be checked in vmware. I do how every scan monthly with mwbytes

[Corona]

Guys, I've been using Avast for quite a while if you remember. I love it. My previous post was a gag. Notice the sentence is incomplete. Sorta like, "I'm not dead ye-"

[ident]

Guys, I've been using Avast for quite a while if you remember. I love it. My previous post was a gag. Notice the sentence is incomplete. Sorta like, "I'm not dead ye-"

 

In other words you are trying to say people with no av are silly and dont kn ow what they are doing?

[DennisD]

I don't think Coronas saying that, as I can see the humour in his post, and I like a touch of humour.

 

I don't think anyone has been particularly critical in this thread, and it is an interesting exercise on the subject of should I or shouldn't I?

[Fluffy]

That Avast Siren freaks me out,and then it tells you...Don`t panic ! its too late the cat is up the curtains and i`m posting in spyware hell !!!!!

[Rorschach112]

I shouldn't admit it, but I run absolutely no security programs on my machine. This is mainly due to a few reasons

 

 

I don't use p2p programs, don't visit disreputable sites, its a slow old PC, I know I can pretty much fix any infection if I was ever to get infected.

 

 

Each to their own really. I've been doing this for like 5 years now. To be honest if my PC wasn't so old I would use some security programs, doesn't hurt to have them and it can save you a lot of trouble.

 

 

I do stress everybody use ERUNT though

[ident]

I don't think Coronas saying that, as I can see humour in his post, and I like a touch of humour.

 

I did appreciate the humour as well.

 

I think it all comes down to what you do and what you know. Yes even the most professional users could get infected. But i know what i do and i know i wont get infected. I use vmware when ever i step outside the box with what i generally use.