Since i switched to an SSD and have silly amounts of of memory i just keep Microsoft Security Essentials running. Before i would just use avast and disable the realtime component and only scanning stuff you downloaded. Realtime scanning always was too much of a speed impact to consider using it.

Malik wrote:

But what about Linux? : - […]
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But what about Linux? : -

a. - Why are Linux OSs' do not have so many budding Anti-Virus Utilities or Softwares?

b. - How safe is Linux when going to a Bank site and doing transactions when compared to using Windows to do it?

c. - Usually I have this idea that to resurrect an old machine to connect to the net - like a Pentium MMX and above or even a high end 486, that it's lot safer to install a Linux distro and proceed. That's what I'm doing.

a- Unix (and deriviatives, such as Linux) are inherently more secure by design - users have limited privileges by default, meaning the damage they can do when something goes wrong is greatly reduced (they can remove all of their own files, for example, but generally can't touch anything else on the system).

b- There *are* virii and malware for Unix, so don't be under the illusion that they're immune - but the number and occurences are so small as to be virtually insignificant. Using it for banking purposes will be fine.

c- I, and many other people use Linux day-to-day as their main machine for both work and home use. As long as you accept that may not have direct replacements for some of your software and it won't (directly) run your games, then it can do pretty much anything you want.

And if you guys don't mind, some more questions : :happyhappy: […]
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And if you guys don't mind, some more questions : 😁

I - Is our system without an A/V, protected, if we don't go to "dubious sites"?

II - Just having an active connection - are we being targeted even if we're passive? I mean let's say we are downloading some drivers from NVIDIA or ATI site and doing nothing else. Or maybe checking email at Gmail or Yahoo?

III - Is it suffice to say that if we practise safe sex...err...safe "surf" while we're online, that we'll be protected? (Without having an Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware installed?) For example watch where we're going, not clicking on unwanted links?

IV. - Is it possible that we are at risk even while downloading Windows Update?

II - There's *always* a possibility, regardless of how small.

Saying that, is it ok if we use Windows for gaming (because all the game clients like Steam run only on Windows, and Windows have a large more popular games database) and use a flavor of Linux to surf important sites like bank websites and for doing transactions like Using Paypal or Credit Cards to pay at games websites or ebay?

What's your take on this?

I'm on the virge of uninstalling my Norton 360, and maybe install Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows and use Linux for more serious work. My final decision will depend on you guys' advice.

Sounds quite sensible. You'll pick up some new skills and knowledge doing that, which is always a good thing.

a.- Maybe because Linux is not regarded as a bussiness, so most commercial software makers do not make software for Linux. There are some antivirus, like ClamAV, Avast and others. Also, some settings in Linux (user configuration, permissions, etc) prevents from wide spreading of viruses.

b.- As safe as your weakest link. Linux is a pretty safe system when properly configured, but keep in mind that your bank connection is not only an OS thing. If someone is stealing your wifi or puts a sniffer in your network, or someone poisons your DNS server... Linux won't save your money.

c.- I don't think it would be a good idea. Recent kernels in distros won't boot in a 486 (unless compiled to do so), and most distributions will need over 128 mb to go graphical... so in the end you will be running an old distro. It will be like running a NT4 machine today... in theory it's safe, but there are unsolved security problems (that won't be solved because the OS is unsupported) and your web browser won't support many modern web sites (and won't do, because it's also unsupported).

I - No. If someone in your house visits one of those sites, or someone puts an infected computer in your network (a laptop, via your wifi...), your computer is at high risk.

II.- Someone told me that a MTA configured to do free relay won't last 10 minutes before someone uses it to send spam. Maybe it's exaggerated, but securing a router is not difficult and won't take your precious CPU time.

III.- Nope. From time to time, some advertisings gets rogue and spread malware, or someone gets an infected computer at your home, or you misspell an URL and get into a world full of nude girls... those things happen.

IV.- Blaster? Sasser? Those were worms that could get into your computer only being connected. IMHO, the typical Windows computer installation would be OS, Antivirus, Firewall (if necessary) and only after doing that, connection to internet.

Linux may be more secure, and have some advantages for work (i.e.: if you need to reboot for gaming, you'll be more focused at work). Also, it won't get corrupted as easily as Windows, so I think it's a good idea having a partition for emergencies, homebanking and those things. Keep in mind that you can use Puppy Linux, Slax, Knoppix or other portable distribution if you can't use a hard disk installation. Also, you could use one of those distributions for doing homebanking from other sites, but keep in mind:

- Maybe other sites aren't as secure as you think. Use https connections everywhere, and remember that FTP and mail passwords are sent without encryption (so better use web mail behind an https site).

- You could lose your USB memory, so you better get your data encrypted (IMHO, homebanking should be only done at a site where you have control of your network, or the network is very secure).

In Windows... the antivirus is essential. Norton is very heavy, but there are lighter antivirus, like Avast!. I don't know how would perform MSE, but if you are worried about performance, avoid Norton and McAfee. Also, avoid Panda at all costs. It's better having an infected computer than a Panda antivirus running on it.

MSE is lightweight but its very weak in detection... it will give users a false sense of security... 3rd party solutions are usually better

mcafee is the crappiest of all paid antivirus out there.... they were great many years ago but they dropped the ball in recent years

norton 360 is bloated, but their plain jane antivirus is a little better in resource usage... I will NEVER recommend or use 360 myself
interestingly enough, the enterprise grade version, symantec endpoint 12.1 is WAY better than either one of the consumer grade norton products, despite sharing the same engine... it has low memory and CPU usage like MSE (which means running it on slow systems isn't an issue), but has amazing detection and robustness unlike their older versions... I read early reviews of this product and it consistently out performed many... it also didn't have problems installing on a heavily infected system and wiping out most of the crap

if you like over protectiveness and paranoia, then kapersky is a good choice

My banks recommends Rapport software for protecting ID on websites. I use that and avg free on my main pc's and don't put anything critical [bank, paypal, credit card details] into any other pc.

What I have noticed lately is that my pc's are getting very slow at starting up, and slow at starting firefox. I think I've tracked that down to avg's ID protection component. If you disable it, avg puts it little error symbol up, but the machine is a lot snappier. I'm wondering if this component does anything more than Rapport, seems like avg are adding more and more services and components to their default configuration

Otherwise, ie on retro boxes, I don't use anti-virus, but they only go onto the net for vogons and driver downloads

I've been using Avast for anti-virus purposes because it's free. I've noticed it's primarily useful for blocking bad things that come up when browsing the net. Even on legit sites, on rare occasions some kind of infection will show up, usually the result of a bad ad. Yes, every once in awhile Avast pulls up an ad for their pay software but this only happens about once every two to three months because they're smart enough to know that not everyone needs the pay features. :P

I know it can be annoying dealing with a virus scanner sometimes, (especially when it says some perfectly legit piece of software is bogus) and back in the 90s when there were only a few tens of thousands of viruses that relied on disks to get transported around that was fine. But there are countless millions of viruses and variants of those viruses now, the vast majority of which transmit over the internet through bad auto-links, image file protocalls and eMails.

I've never liked Norton, for a wide variety of reasons. It's difficult to completely uninstall, its "free" updates required you to be signed up for its paid auto-subscription service (that was awhile ago, maybe that's changed by now), and it's oversized and takes up way too much space.

Viruses can also be pretty tricky. I recently got hit by a bad-ad virus (no, I didn't click it) which managed to find its way in because it magically turned my firewall off somehow. Avast stopped it, but it still required me to reboot and do a boot-time scan to properly remove it. I looked up details about the specific virus afterwards to see what kind of damage it may've done or what kind of private details it would've hunted for but it seemed to be very specific in targeting banking information and only while attempting to visit a banking website. Since the virus lasted all of two seconds before Avast caught it, that obviously never happened. ;)

Even on MacOS and Linux though, it's important to have anti-virus stuff on hand, specifically if there's any kind of internet connection going. There aren't nearly as many MacOS/Linux viruses as there are Windows viruses, but they DO exist. My mother uses a Mac and she lost a lot of data thanks to a virus a few years ago.

In short though, Anti-Virus software is VERY essential nowadays. Regardless of your OS. :/

Regarding II, no, it's not just the dubious sites anymore, it's the advertising network even on huge commercial sites like Yahoo.com.
We call that "malvertising" these days. The bad guys buy ads through affiliates that are displayed on well-known sites, and if you haven't installed the latest patches, you might be attacked even while doing nothing on the site, simply because the ads rotate periodically, and eventually one of the bad ones will show up.

Linux users are delusional if they think someone isn't going to release an incredibly dangerous variant of some virus, worm, or other malware on the Linux platform. Mac OS X users are just as bad.

If you do internet banking and stuff, I wouldn't want to do without firewalls and antivirus software.
I use Avast for realtime scanning and run Malwarebytes now and then to filter the potential virusses Avast misses.
If you download files or visit dubious websites you can have them checked first by https://www.virustotal.com.
Of course all this will never fully protect your PC, but then again they diagnosed me as being schizoid paranoid. 😁

peterferrie wrote:

Regarding II, no, it's not just the dubious sites anymore, it's the advertising network even on huge commercial sites like Yahoo.com.
We call that "malvertising" these days. The bad guys buy ads through affiliates that are displayed on well-known sites, and if you haven't installed the latest patches, you might be attacked even while doing nothing on the site, simply because the ads rotate periodically, and eventually one of the bad ones will show up.

I use the Addblockerplus plugin on Firefox. I wonder if it would defend me against those virusses.

sliderider wrote:

Linux users are delusional if they think someone isn't going to release an incredibly dangerous variant of some virus, worm, or other malware on the Linux platform. Mac OS X users are just as bad.

Hence Eset has made their NOD antivirus available for Linux.

Just a couple of points to add. While it good to stay away from high risk sites, don't let that lull you into a false sense of security. Even legitimate sites can be hijacked or infected. Linux may be generally more secure, but you are only as secure as the weakest link, regardless of OS. That weakest link is generally between the keyboard and the chair.

Safe practices and keeping updated goes a long way to protect you, it is not an absolute guarantee. I'll second Harekiet on the Microsoft Security Essentials for real time protection. It seems to have a fairly low overhead while active. The only time that I ever notice it slowing anything down is when accessing a new folder with executables and MSE will quickly scan them before then can be accessed.

Gemini000 wrote:

I've been using Avast for anti-virus purposes because it's free. I've noticed it's primarily useful for blocking bad things that […]
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I've been using Avast for anti-virus purposes because it's free. I've noticed it's primarily useful for blocking bad things that come up when browsing the net. Even on legit sites, on rare occasions some kind of infection will show up, usually the result of a bad ad. Yes, every once in awhile Avast pulls up an ad for their pay software but this only happens about once every two to three months because they're smart enough to know that not everyone needs the pay features. 😜

I know it can be annoying dealing with a virus scanner sometimes, (especially when it says some perfectly legit piece of software is bogus) and back in the 90s when there were only a few tens of thousands of viruses that relied on disks to get transported around that was fine. But there are countless millions of viruses and variants of those viruses now, the vast majority of which transmit over the internet through bad auto-links, image file protocalls and eMails.

I've never liked Norton, for a wide variety of reasons. It's difficult to completely uninstall, its "free" updates required you to be signed up for its paid auto-subscription service (that was awhile ago, maybe that's changed by now), and it's oversized and takes up way too much space.

Viruses can also be pretty tricky. I recently got hit by a bad-ad virus (no, I didn't click it) which managed to find its way in because it magically turned my firewall off somehow. Avast stopped it, but it still required me to reboot and do a boot-time scan to properly remove it. I looked up details about the specific virus afterwards to see what kind of damage it may've done or what kind of private details it would've hunted for but it seemed to be very specific in targeting banking information and only while attempting to visit a banking website. Since the virus lasted all of two seconds before Avast caught it, that obviously never happened. 😉

Even on MacOS and Linux though, it's important to have anti-virus stuff on hand, specifically if there's any kind of internet connection going. There aren't nearly as many MacOS/Linux viruses as there are Windows viruses, but they DO exist. My mother uses a Mac and she lost a lot of data thanks to a virus a few years ago.

In short though, Anti-Virus software is VERY essential nowadays. Regardless of your OS. 😒

last year's tests have shown that Avast have fallen way behind because its engine is still dependent on old fashioned definition updates... most other antivirus programs have gone to a hybrid system where it uses both a cloud based and definition updates scheme... as far as free goes, AVG has caught back up and is now better than Avast

but any of the free antivirus is still crap... you get what you pay!

if you don't want to pay subscriptions for norton (not that I blame anyone for not wanting to), then get symantec endpoint... it has subscriptions and its updates are lifetime (except for major software version updates, as expected).... as I said earlier, it behaves nothing like norton and is resource friendly and is very unintrusive to use... in fact, it runs circles around Avast and AVG

collector wrote:

Just a couple of points to add. While it good to stay away from high risk sites, don't let that lull you into a false sense of security. Even legitimate sites can be hijacked or infected. Linux may be generally more secure, but you are only as secure as the weakest link, regardless of OS. That weakest link is generally between the keyboard and the chair.

Safe practices and keeping updated goes a long way to protect you, it is not an absolute guarantee. I'll second Harekiet on the Microsoft Security Essentials for real time protection. It seems to have a fairly low overhead while active. The only time that I ever notice it slowing anything down is when accessing a new folder with executables and MSE will quickly scan them before then can be accessed.

MSE is lightweight and WEAK
don't lull yourself to a false sense of security

I had friends who got infected with the stupidest things because they were using MSE and thought they were safe

even with the safest practices, you are not immune to viruses.... they always sneak up to you when you least expect them!

Firefox users should use FB Phishing Protector and Adblock Plus at the very least... and anyone who has a clue using computers should use NoScript for even better protection... just NoScript alone saved me from many bad facebook links

Actually, on most metrics, MSE pretty much as good as the other free solutions, and destroys them on performance.

It's gotten loads better in the last two or three years, that's for sure.

I avoid virus programs. I never ever run into a virus or security issues.

This is a great resource for anyone looking for an antivirus program:

http://www.av-comparatives.org

In particular, here are the results of the 2011 tests

http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories … summary2011.pdf

They recommend Kaspersky as the best overall anti virus, Microsoft Security Essentials seems fairly mediocre (definitely not the worst tested)

From personal experience Mcafee is a system hog and doesn't seem all that great at detecting viruses, and daily definitions updates are over 100MB

And I never ever run into a virus or security issues.

How do you know if you never check for viruses? You could have viruses on your machine and not know about it.

yup... as that site shows, Avast, Avira, and AVG, all of which are available in free versions, blow MSE out of the water

and keep in mind that site ONLY compares consumer grade antivirus solutions.... NOT enterprise grade ones, which are very different

enterprise grade antivirus such as symantec endpoint are sometimes provided free to university students of certain schools... such as indiana university... and if you're serving for the US military or have something to do with the military, you can also get it free from one of the US military's websites (after you login of course)

TheMAN wrote:

yup... as that site shows, Avast, Avira, and AVG, all of which are available in free versions, blow MSE out of the water

ADV vs ADV+ isn't really "(blown) out of the water" as you say.

Hmmm....Kapersky Internet Security is even 4 cents cheaper than Symantec Internet Security. ($79.95 vs $79.99 for 1Yr-3PCs.) 😁

What do you guys think about those free online scanners? Almost every company is offering the free service. I'm sure it won't be as good as the installed (read paid) version, but still...

If using a basic router's firewall, installing an ad/pop-up blocker, and a browser-integrated anti-malware plugins along with online scan (and good surf practices) - does that sound too good to be true?

I'm still using a PAID antivirus, just to give the benefit of the doubt, and it's better safe than sorry.

BUT, the thought of the anti-virus downloading HUNDREDS of megabytes of "updates" every few days, (after 20 days, it's almost always more than 100MBs plus make me cringe. After 3 or 5 days, it's more than 10MB)

Usually I maintain multiple systems and even my laptop has 2 hard hardrives with 3 OS, each in it's own partition - (hence the 3 PC license I used to get) - Win7x64, WinXPx86 and Linux (flavor changes according to my mood. 😁 )

Sometimes I wonder if I'm buying and choking my casing with hard drives just to fill up with virus definitions and updates?

In this fast moving, cruel world, a classic DOS machine still gives the much needed comfort. No *#^$ing updates. Just load up a game, sit back and listen to the Roland's music, and relax...

Anyway, coming back to the topic, the Kapersky seems tempting... especially with it's 4 cents discount! Too bad my norton auto-renewed this year....aaaaarrrggghhhh.... But on the other hand, though it seems bloated, it doesn't bog down my system (or maybe I've grown numb to it 🤣) and seems to work without interrupting me. The reason I bought the Norton 360 was because of the seamless performance when it came out (version 4.0)...but maybe that was because I just changed from BitDefender....which annoyed me almost everyday, saying it is out of date the next day, complains that the system has not been scanned...or at the very least it keeps displaying the cross or "something's not right" icon on the system tray almost everyday. (even after I set it to "Don't Disturb Me For Silly Things Settings")

I guess, I have to review at the end of each year, to see which anti-virus suite got better to use the following year.