virus protection

[Rich C]

That's all fine, but it's a moot point if all your software runs on Windows.

I just run windows defender, no viruses in years. It's not really that hard to avoid them.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

MS Windows has a sort of analogous problem to monoculture too, like the Cavendish banana. All copies genetically identical, so one disease affects all. Linux comes in a variety of flavours with different binaries, even the OS kernel, so exploiting buffer overruns etc is all less easy and predictable.

 

[Garno]

For the average user Windows Defender is adequate, a lot of options on paid versions really are not worth having. You pay for the ability to configure it but at the end of the day providing it keeps out the nasties people are happy. The Windows Defender really does do a decent job of it these days, unlike when it first launched :shock:

 

[thetyreman]

I got rid of norton, it did my head in takes up far too much RAM for my tastes, changed to avast and have never looked back, I have heard pandasecurity is very good from an IT guru master I know but haven't used it.

 

[Bm101]

I tried Bitdefender a few years back and never looked back. You have to pay but it's a 1 stop solution to lots of issues. I used to use various programs like ccleaner but the ads became tiresome. Bitdefender does all that registry cleaning now, secure banking, vpn access. It looks for duplicate files. All the rest. It gets voted top anti malware etc fairly regularly.
If you get it on sale:
https://www.bitdefender.co.uk/solutions ... urity.html
25 notes on 3 devices for a year is what? 2 pound a month for dedicated plug and play peace of mind.
No brainer for me at least.
:-s

 

[Robbo3]

Phil-p - presume you are using Windows 10

Windows 10, as much as I detest it - I run it in a VM (Virtual Machine), is the most secure Windows operating system to date. It has Windows Defender built in & unless you don't surf safely (eg by visiting porn & crack sites) you won't need anything else.
If you use another anti virus (which you really don't need) Defender automatically takes a back seat so that the two don't clash. If you then remove the second anti virus Defender doesn't always restart itself automatically & it has to be done manually.

 

[Nelsun]

^Wot they said. I'm a 20 year time served systems administrator and Windows Defender is plenty good. It's not the best but it's enough, doesn't slow your machine to a crawl and rarely detects Windows as a virus and cripple the host machine in the process.

These days (and it's been this way forever really) the antivirus providers are always playing catch-up to the ne'er-do-wells. The best thing you can do is keep basic protections in place but, more importantly, observe basic common sense and keep your PC updated and don't go near dodgy sites. This goes for any device running anything more advanced than a calculator

Infections can be so advanced that even with AV claiming to have removed something... they haven't... and a complete wipe and reinstall is safer and often faster (believe it or not).

 

[sammy.se]

Just fyi, McAfee is £2.99 on Amazon at the moment. Black Friday deal.

McAfee want to charge me 10x that on their website.

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[whatknot]

I wouldn't have Norton or McAfee if they paid me to have it ;-)

Hugely bloated & memory hungry

When I have bought computers with either on its the first thing I remove

I have used Avast (free) for years with no problems

In conjunction with Ccleaner run daily after every session

And periodically
Superantispyware (free)
and Malwarebytes (free)

On my wifes she uses Windows defender and Ccleaner daily

And periodically
Superantispyware (free)
and Malwarebytes (free)

 

[Yojevol]

Thanks for those, Whatknot.
Have just installed Ccleaner and Superantispyware but couldn't find a free Malwarebytes, only a 14 day trial.
Brian

 

[whatknot]

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/

Try here

 

[Dibs-h]

I use Comodo (it's free) and have been very happy with it over the years. You just need to watch the install and uncheck some boxes when it offers to install some "freebies" or change your DNS servers - other than that no issues.

 

[Yojevol]

https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/

Try here

Thanks

 

[Robbo3]

Thanks for those, Whatknot.
Have just installed Ccleaner and Superantispyware but couldn't find a free Malwarebytes, only a 14 day trial.
Brian

Malwarebytes - https://www.malwarebytes.com/pricing/
It used to be a month as a resident anti virus reverting to an on demand scanner but it seems the free version is now just an on demand scanner.

 

[user22161]

I also only ever use the built in microsoft security. I have never had any virus or malware on any of my machines. You just need to be sensible on what you click on. If you can't get rid of a pop up box just switch it off at the wall and then reboot.

Gerry

+1

I just run Microsoft Security Essentials on W7 (I think it's Defender on W 8 & 10) plus free versions of C Cleaner and Malwarebytes for weekly scans. Norton usually slows computers down, I've uninstalled it for several people and replaced with free products.