Anti-Virus Software: Do you have any?
Something I've never kept on my machine is anti-virus software… due to the fact it noticeably slows my machine down.
I’ve never actually HAD a virus, and I don’t know anyone that has.
SPYWARE is a different matter. Spyware can be collected quite easily due to the stealth tactics the evil “coders” practice. I’ve had Spyware on my machine… who hasn’t – but it’s never been too difficult to remove myself.
Recommended software
Can I just say that a lot of people recommend 'SpyBot' - it just doesn't cut mustard for me, sorry.
Non Techie Friends…
I get a lot of “call outs” from friends/family/friends of family asking me to come over and “speed up” their PC. Not only does the fact they're asking me annoy me… hehe.. but It annoys me that PC’s are often full of bloatware (i.e. unrequired applications) and that it’s actually listed as a feature(!!!).
Microsoft are working toward cutting out spyware with their Windows Defender application. I've not yet bought or installed Vista but I hope that's a part of it. Microsoft's OS's are always going to be the target to spammers, phishers and related idiots but at least now they have an application that is ready to fight. Let's face it: if MAC OS was used by as many people as Windows, there would be as many hacks/viruses/spyware apps for it as there is for Windows. Yeah?
Something I've never kept on my machine is anti-virus software… due to the fact it noticeably slows my machine down.
I’ve never actually HAD a virus, and I don’t know anyone that has.
SPYWARE is a different matter. Spyware can be collected quite easily due to the stealth tactics the evil “coders” practice. I’ve had Spyware on my machine… who hasn’t – but it’s never been too difficult to remove myself.
Recommended software
Can I just say that a lot of people recommend 'SpyBot' - it just doesn't cut mustard for me, sorry.
Non Techie Friends…
I get a lot of “call outs” from friends/family/friends of family asking me to come over and “speed up” their PC. Not only does the fact they're asking me annoy me… hehe.. but It annoys me that PC’s are often full of bloatware (i.e. unrequired applications) and that it’s actually listed as a feature(!!!).
Microsoft are working toward cutting out spyware with their Windows Defender application. I've not yet bought or installed Vista but I hope that's a part of it. Microsoft's OS's are always going to be the target to spammers, phishers and related idiots but at least now they have an application that is ready to fight. Let's face it: if MAC OS was used by as many people as Windows, there would be as many hacks/viruses/spyware apps for it as there is for Windows. Yeah?
February 16th, 2007 at 2:22 am
I have to agree, due to lack of market saturation, MacOS and 'Leenocks' will not be considered main-stream for easy attacks by phishers and other malicious minded individuals.
In response to your AntiVirus (AV) recommendation question: I personally used to use McAfee VirusScan v6 before later versions became too 'AOL friendly' and reduced the product to a pile of poop whose only purpose was to steer mis-information at the PC user in the hopes of scaring them into constantly responding to dialogs claiming that their hardware was under 'attack' and implying McAfee AV was 'defending' them.
Symantec's Norton AntiVirus also has the same behaviour from what I have seen on other people's machine setup, along with experience of the product's early versions (year: 2004~) showing easy ways to alter malware and have Norton fail to detect it. It also had issues in detecting non-binary content as malware (such as copying SDBot's (an IRC based trojan) version information in notepad and saving the sample text file and watching Norton immediately lock the machine stating a 'virus' was found).
With most AV products now-a-days focus on being ultra friendly, to the point of being silly, I have found that Kaspersky Lab's 'Kaspersky Anti-Virus' ('KAV') product has been pretty impressive. I have only experience with v5 and more recently v6 but so far so good. I recommend it if you're an intermediate PC user and don't need to be excited when a basic PC events occur.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:29 am
hey…
I heard AVG is not so bad?
It is quite light too!