Life without anti-virus ?

K

Kicking

I got my laptop back after a terrible ordeal to get it repaired under warranty when it died a few weeks back.

I still don't know what happened but it was very similar to what happened to many AVG users on 11/11 when they downloaded an update that deleted an XP file and killed Windows.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119848

I have AVG on all my older machines but I am still not sure I had it on the notebook because Norton was running on it and I don't think I would have installed AVG on top of Norton.

But now that I have read all about what AV programs can do I am seriously considering not using any. I rarely do the updates and rarely scan anyway so what good is it ? I scan with S&D and have a firewall. ( XP's or then ZA).
The odds that you will catch a virus are actually much lower than the odds of experiencing problems with those programs . And then good luck to get help from support !

if you go to

http://freeforum.avg.com/

it's a litany of problems posted by users who apparently still continue to use the product !


It's not just AVG, ALL antivirus programs have had their share
of hair raising bugs.

So how do we live without them ? I don't want to ever waste my time and raise my blood pressure because some timewasting developer somewhere screwed up their latest "update".
 
Quote from Kicking:
The odds that you will catch a virus are actually much lower than the odds of experiencing problems with those programs.
More...
Two points

(1) You obviously just made the above up

(2) When doing a risk/benefit analysis you not only have to look at the probability of each event but also the costs associated with each.

Meaning I'd much rather have a problem with an anti-virus program then I would want to have my machine infected with a virus and not know about it.
 
I've run multiple machines without anti-virus but with a strong firewall for years. No virus problems! It is really not hard to avoid download viruses unless you are an idiot.
 
Quote from Kicking:

I got my laptop back after a terrible ordeal to get it repaired under warranty when it died a few weeks back.

I still don't know what happened but it was very similar to what happened to many AVG users on 11/11 when they downloaded an update that deleted an XP file and killed Windows.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119848

I have AVG on all my older machines but I am still not sure I had it on the notebook because Norton was running on it and I don't think I would have installed AVG on top of Norton.

But now that I have read all about what AV programs can do I am seriously considering not using any. I rarely do the updates and rarely scan anyway so what good is it ? I scan with S&D and have a firewall. ( XP's or then ZA).
The odds that you will catch a virus are actually much lower than the odds of experiencing problems with those programs . And then good luck to get help from support !

if you go to

http://freeforum.avg.com/

it's a litany of problems posted by users who apparently still continue to use the product !


It's not just AVG, ALL antivirus programs have had their share
of hair raising bugs.

So how do we live without them ? I don't want to ever waste my time and raise my blood pressure because some timewasting developer somewhere screwed up their latest "update".
More...

I prefer not to install anti-virus software on my computer either. I have Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-aware Free 2008. I use them to manually scan for mal-ware. I don't want an anti-virus software package always running in the background and slowing my computer down. I think most viruses are caused by user behavior (downloading files from suspect websites). I prefer to watch what files I download. Also, there are several free places on the internet where you can scan and remove any viruses you may have. One site is
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
 
Quote from GTS:

Two points

(1) You obviously just made the above up

(2) When doing a risk/benefit analysis you not only have to look at the probability of each event but also the costs associated with each.

Meaning I'd much rather have a problem with an anti-virus program then I would want to have my machine infected with a virus and not know about it.
More...

I didn't make it up :
3 viruses/trojans in 8 years, two of them crippled my PC but I was able to fix it myself not being computer savvy, and each time it took me something like 3 days.

And that's with surfing all kinds of sh*it running AVG but hardly ever updating it or scanning (I suppose if you don't scan , it's no use)


The laptop episode is more than I can bear, I don't know if it was AVg , I think it wasn't actually but what I read about the AVG bug tells me that it would have been the same ordeal pretty much.

As I said I rarely update AV and firewall but I can definitely say that the time i wasted on update problems for other pieces of software (those I am FORCED to update, and you know which one I am talking about) is about the same as the time wasted on fixing viruses .

So all in all you spend as much time if not more updating your AV programs and so on as fixing the problems you would have if you didn't have the AV programs.

There is only one difference : you are guaranteed to have problems with updates from time to time , there is no gurantee you will get trojans if you are careful about what you do.
 
Quote from Kicking:

I didn't make it up :
3 viruses/trojans in 8 years, two of them crippled my PC but I was able to fix it myself not being computer savvy, and each time it took me something like 3 days.
More...
Your anecdotal evidence with a sample size of one is not sufficient to support your blanket statement: "The odds that you will catch a virus are actually much lower than the odds of experiencing problems with those programs"
 
Quote from Kicking:

I got my laptop back after a terrible ordeal to get it repaired under warranty when it died a few weeks back.

I still don't know what happened but it was very similar to what happened to many AVG users on 11/11 when they downloaded an update that deleted an XP file and killed Windows.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9119848

I have AVG on all my older machines but I am still not sure I had it on the notebook because Norton was running on it and I don't think I would have installed AVG on top of Norton.

But now that I have read all about what AV programs can do I am seriously considering not using any. I rarely do the updates and rarely scan anyway so what good is it ? I scan with S&D and have a firewall. ( XP's or then ZA).
The odds that you will catch a virus are actually much lower than the odds of experiencing problems with those programs . And then good luck to get help from support !

if you go to

http://freeforum.avg.com/

it's a litany of problems posted by users who apparently still continue to use the product !


It's not just AVG, ALL antivirus programs have had their share
of hair raising bugs.

So how do we live without them ? I don't want to ever waste my time and raise my blood pressure because some timewasting developer somewhere screwed up their latest "update".
More...
i havent used any av programs for years. the danger is over rated to sell software.
 
I use a Mac - no A/V needed. :)

On the Windows images where I trade, however, I use F-Prot A/V. As a security geek, I must say it's been the most reliable and bug-free A/V I've encountered over my 15 years in the field.
 
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