Attention! You do not need antivirus!

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Deleted member 12106

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Ok, so, my roomate is set that you do not need any time of anti-virus, and you do not need a firewall either.

I have tried to explain to him that because of people that think like this, that this causes a lot or problems.

I have lost more then 100 gigs of files to a virus, and he is on my lan. I have told him, install antivirus, and he says "no, do you get a virus?" I told him no, and before I could finish my sentence, he says "there you go, I don't need it". I tried to explain to him that norton catches everything in the process, and that I have been using it for years, along with a good firewall.

He belives that because of this one guy at a lan party said that you do not need it, that no one needs it.

I am just trying to explain to him that yes, everyone needs it. I have been to lan party's where norton has saved my ass, and, I have walked up to people and said, "hey man, this directory on your box has this file with this virus" and they turn and say, how do you know? And I explain to them I run an anti-virus program.

I have also been to lans where we have had no network cuz of some johnny typhoid guy, and I have heard of HUGE 200+ lans where people would not run anti-virus and they all hosed eachother.

This kid won't listen to me. I sure wish there was an internet police or something so people who carelessly use the internet can be chaged with spreading a virus. He often times uses p2p apps also...so...yeah... :confused:
 
Sounds to me he simply needs to learn the hard way if he won't even listen to sound advice from friends *shrugs*

Then again, I don't run Antivirus software either. Not because im closed minded, but because I want every single scrap of clock cycle dedicted to my gaming machine, im that picky.

But for all my clients at work, yes, Antivirus is simply a must.
 
i don't use a firewall or any anti-virus.. i'm on a big Wireless lan set up behind a few routers/hubs/switches so not much gets through unless it rides along with a file.. i personally don't like norton firewall.. it doesn't like networks from what i've experianced so i don't use it.. and i haven't had a virus since i built this computer 2 years ago so i see no reason to get AV software, also norton likes to increase my startup time about 30 seconds.
 
I don't use anti-virus on my gaming rig, but then again I don't download any files directly to that PC.
 
I Feel bad for all you guys that get one of those little happy winsock/dll muncher viruses, You guys should at least run AVG , its free.
 
Minishark said:
I bet he uses IE too.
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It is better then that nutscrap/firefox crap, and there is nothing wrong with it, I have never had a problem with it, so, why would I change it out? Can you tell me it has cause you problems? Firefox is not as secure as most seem to think, either. As it gains popularity, there will be more probs with it. My friend is a linux/opensource guru, and he does not use it, tells me something...
 
somebody on my schools network has a worm/virus. Every writable shared directory on the network had randomly name .eml files show up...
 
If you know what your're doing and can monitor your system, you can get by without an antivirus or firewall, but I feel so much better with them.

I never ran an antivirus until about a year ago when my MB came with PCCillin. I don't leave it running all the time, I just scan my downloads.

Back in the old DOS days, I though I had a virus, so I downloaded a shareware version of Mcaffee off of a BBS, but it didn't find anything. Turned out my HD was on the edge of crapping out.

I didn't run a firewall either until maybe 6 months ago. I had my cable modem plugged into a 8port 100Mbps switch with two computers on it. I had file sharing off, disabled netbios etc. No problems then (no I don't run IE).

I wanted a wireless router with firewall so I could share files between them. Before I got my firewall/router I had to enable file sharing and netbios, copy files over then disable it again (pain in the ass). I now run SygatePF after becoming paranoid about legit programs sending shit out. Turns out alot of installers like to call home during the install process, so now that gets blocked.

PCCillin cut me off from updates after 3 months and I was supposed to get a year of updates, so I now use AVG. I still don't leave it running all the time, I just scan my downloads and do a full system scan every couple of weeks.
 
Firefox is not as secure as most seem to think, either. As it gains popularity, there will be more probs with it. My friend is a linux/opensource guru, and he does not use it, tells me something...
Click to expand...

No active X, that should tell you something. And your friend just probably prefers another similar opensource browser.
 
Zlash said:
No active X, that should tell you something. And your friend just probably prefers another similar opensource browser.
Click to expand...


No, he uses IE. No one likes nut scrape, and you can disable active x in ie.
 
Well, I don't know about anyone else, But I have many friends, coworkers and aquaintances that send me crap e-mail even when I ask them not to. Many times, I have caught the virus before I opened the e-mail. I also like having my firewall and router security. I know, I know...that stuff can be defeated. But at the every least my personal Apps don't call home.

I have had no Issues running Norton Firewall on my network and I am popup free. I just wish I could be spam free. I get about 15 spam e-mail messages a day. Not much but enough to be bothersome.

Personally, I would rather have the hassle of antivirus and firewalls than have to constantly worry about viruses and intrusions. And to be truthful about it, there are varying degrees of paranoia. Do I feel totally safe? Not really. I just feel safer with it than without it. Its like driving a car WITH insurance. You might never need it but when you do you are better prepared to deal with the consequences.
 
Wow, some of you guys should really just not say things like this in a security forum. :)

1) Yes, you CAN get by with minimal apps running, such as no host-based firewall and no AV. BUT, it's not whether you will get a virus/worm or not, it's just a matter of time. Even security freaks have to download and run programs at some point, and one may just hide a trojan. And if you do run without these progs, you also better practice other safe habits such as non-default passwords on your admin account and keep your open shares under watch...

2) To the person who said they are behind a nice lan and the only way through is if something comes in on a file....that's how many viruses come in. Firewalls many times do not stop files, they do not stop email attachments, they do not scan for trojans or block potentially malicious executables. All it takes is one person to download an infected program via Kazaa or email or downloaded from a shady Geocities site. Just one person, and you could potentially be fucked.

3) To anyone using IE.... About a year and a half ago Microsoft was made aware of a deep flaw in IE, actually three related flaws in IE, that allowed a crafted web page to run arbitrary code on machine. MS patched one, but left the other two. Within weeks malicious web pages were posted...a friend of mine went to one and had his AIM account hijacked. I traced this all down by following the code and even talked to the author of that particular page. MS never did fix it, and still has not fixed it. Although I've not heard of any huge virus issues related to it, 6 months after the flaws were found to still be active, spammers and adware/spyware groups latched onto it like no tomorrow. You go to a webpage and the HDA exploit leaves you open for them to install their programs on your computer. And you won't know it unless you have a firewall open that prompts you about whether to allow IE's HDA to access the internet. I've personally tested that particular exploit, and it alone was what finally got me off IE and over to something else.

If someone can get you to run their code on your machine, it's not your computer anymore.

4) A worm replicates on its own If a new worm is released and starts spreading over the internet before proper protection is put in place, and it gets loose on your lan, guess what? If you have the same vulnerability on your machine, you've just been infected. And you didn't have to do a thing.

There are a lot of things out there that don't need you to double-click them for you to be a victim.

5) If you're on a DSL/Cable connection and you don't utilize any sort of firewall on your cable/DSL router or other routers, or you just put your PC on the DMZ, please be aware that anyone can scan your IP and enumerate open ports on your computer...then look up exploits on those ports and apps, and get into your machine.

If you think you're safe because no one hates you, you're naive. Random scanning is done daily on Internet boxes. My web server gets about a dozen such scans a day, and it is attracting no special attention at all. Just random scans people and other machines do...hoping to find a port or two that they can flag and check out later...

6) These are not just scare tactics. There are many people of the same mind as you, and they're the ones who go crying to ISP/MS/vendor support when a virus or worm hits. If you're at a 200 person LAN and you don't have a firewall on, sorry, but someone is going to have fun poking at you....I would.


The bottom line is, use some sort of AV and firewall. Even if the firewall is just in your DSL/Cable router or even if your AV is something small and free like Antivir. At least use something...because if you don't, you have no one to blame but yourself if something bad happens.
 
why does it matter what we say on this forum.. good luck getting my ip address through a forum ;)

Also to reply to you.. i do not use kazaa..email attachments or geocities sites.. also on my network there are very few open ports.. so i guess if you can get passed it all then props to you.
 
Sc0tty08,

Your friend may be a zombie.


Rabbit,

Just because you do not use kwaaza doesn't mean that every time you power up your PC isn't being scanned by thousands of kwaaza users. I had Outpost firewall running behind my 4 port D-Link router and one day I bypassed the D-Link router because I had to move the PC and I was totally hammered by kwaaza queries.
 
fine by me, the more people out there NOT using virus software or firewalls will keep the script kiddies away from me, they want easy targets

oh, and to the person that said IE is better (more secure) than mozilla/firefox, your just ignorant
 
IceWind said:
Sounds to me he simply needs to learn the hard way if he won't even listen to sound advice from friends *shrugs*

Then again, I don't run Antivirus software either. Not because im closed minded, but because I want every single scrap of clock cycle dedicted to my gaming machine, im that picky.

But for all my clients at work, yes, Antivirus is simply a must.
Click to expand...

I'm the same way. But I do conduct regular online virus scans and manually scan my machine from boot disks.

I just don't usually install it.

BTW Norton sucks ass. Just try removing the bastard after it stops working. And the uninstaller corrupts. Spending 30 minutes in teh registry to get it out of there sucks donkey cock.
 
i dont run antivirus, i keep backups on an external hard drive of anything important on my pc (ie music and pr0n). if/when i get viruses i just format and away they go. that is the way it should be, not wasting system resources on some program that just tells you you have a virus. i do use the ad aware and stuff like that though
 
I haven't been using an antivirus for years and I've never had a virus since. Smart computing is much more secure than relying on av apps. Hell, I know people that use up to date av and still get viruses because they don't know what they're doing.
 
poopy said:
I haven't been using an antivirus for years and I've never had a virus since. Smart computing is much more secure than relying on av apps. Hell, I know people that use up to date av and still get viruses because they don't know what they're doing.
Click to expand...

that is my point exactly. you either know what you are doing on the net or you don't. antivirus software is just something that hogs system resources and slows down performance.

The antivirus software is not important. if you want protection a properly configured firewall is your best friend.
 
compslckr said:
that is my point exactly. you either know what you are doing on the net or you don't. antivirus software is just something that hogs system resources and slows down performance.

The antivirus software is not important. if you want protection a properly configured firewall is your best friend.
Click to expand...

i somewhat agree...a memory resident AV proggy is a hog and is useless, so i turn resident shield off, and just use it to scan downloaded shizzle

its just another layer of protection, again, if properly used, can save j00r ass
 
compslckr said:
i dont run antivirus, i keep backups on an external hard drive of anything important on my pc (ie music and pr0n). if/when i get viruses i just format and away they go. that is the way it should be, not wasting system resources on some program that just tells you you have a virus. i do use the ad aware and stuff like that though
Click to expand...

Clearly you haven't set up an AV program in a while. They don't just tell you you have a virus if you bother to set them up properly.

Also, I would NEVER use ANY off the shelf retail AV program. EVER. They have way too much bloat as they try to package in firewalls, internet security programs, all that shit. I currently use Symantec AV Corporate. I know how to totally turn it off if necessary, but the real time scan takes very little memory. Granted, it hasn't gone off yet, but then again between using Firefox and knowing what I download (anything off of BT sites gets scanned at least twice given how many levels of ZIP files it has) I haven't had a problem. This avoids the problems of taking my laptop to some hotel or LAN party and meeting up with one of you dumb shits who are on Cable/DSL with no firewall, router, antivirus, or anything spamming out some trojan downloader that attached itself to your winsock layer. Spybot/HijackThis/Adware can't catch everything, and the stuff it can't catch is the nastiest of all.
 
i can understand the arguement that someone may not need AV for home use (i still don't agree with it). but you had better believe that a pc having anything to do with productivity had better have some sort of AV/firewall combination.

i'm wondering if these people who think they don't need AV becuase they've never stumbled across a virus also think it's cool never to wear a seatbelt becuase they haven't been in an accident yet?
 
I use a firewall but havent installed an AV program since Norton borked my system ages ago. Like people have said, its common sense. I dont open email if i dont know who sent it, let alone open attachments, i dont visit shady websites and i hate anything P2P.
 
Hey...if you dont want to use AV software or a personal firewall, then dont. Just dont come bitching saying "help me fix my screwed up computer" when a worm infects it or some hacker has a field day with it.

Very simple really.

Stupid is as stupid does, and stupid will get your PC trashed sooner or later.

That's what I tell my friends, perhaps you should tell yours the same and let it go. It's usually not worth trying to convince people with that mindset that they need to use the stuff.
 
The only virus thats managed to beat me was that gay ass blaster worm back in August of last year.

Beyond that, coupled with my now surfing of Firefox, firewall, constant patches and careful web browsing and file downloading, I have no need for a bloated AV to slow down my machine.

Quotes Walter Cronkite "And thats the way it is...."
 
Geez...so many people not running av, those are the people that are spreading crap....

Essentially, your having sex w/o protection, not a matter of if you get a kid/std, but, when...

I have gotten him to install av, and there is no bloat with norton, you can choose not to install any of the extras. I have been using norton for years w/o a prob ever with it. Infact, I use all the bloat on it:p

I run systemworks. It has not slowed my computer down, my boot time has not increased dramitaclly, and, really, I never shut down my box, and I doubt very many of you people do, so, it does not take that long to power up...

Well, I guess you can not run av, I don't really care, but, just hope I never tap you on the shoulder at a lan to let you know you have a virus. My friend hosts some good sized lans, and, the next one, he is beadting that anti virus software will be req or, you will have to scan your box b4 you get in. Last time, the network was down due to someone's lack of responsible computing.
 
I live/work in a residence hall of 550 people. My job is to fix anyone's computer for free, and as payment, the school pays for my housing and meals and I just have to pay tuition. Since the freshmen got here August 29th, I've fixed about 160 people's computers. 85% has been the exact same thing: Massive amounts of virii and spyware. Just because some of you may think that you're too good to get virii, doesn't mean the vast majority of the population isn't.

And the whole "IE is secure enough" argument is bullshit. Try dealing with 100+ people that all have over 200 spyware objects because of flaws in IE. At least Firefox gets updated more than once every FIVE FREAKING YEARS, and even tells the user when it's been updated!
 
[quote[and there is no bloat with norton[/quote]
are you kidding? norton is the most bloated of them all, the auto updates hog resources like there is no tomorrow, and the auto protect always always runs and wastes valuable cpu cycles and memory
 
uh yea, there's actually a pretty simple solution to not getting viruses in ie/windows...

run WindowsUpdate once a week. It takes 10 seconds out of your life to fricken check if there are updates. I haven't had anti virus software on my computer for years except for adaware, and that never even finds anything but cookies, which everyone gets regardless.

I just checked my computer with mcafee stinger and trend micro housecall, and no there was nothing there. Did i mention i'm on a school network? people get viruses all the time because they're just lazy and don't run windows update.

Its really simple, run windows update, they're free and its like getting more for your money with windows.
 
compslckr said:
i dont run antivirus, i keep backups on an external hard drive of anything important on my pc (ie music and pr0n). if/when i get viruses i just format and away they go. that is the way it should be, not wasting system resources on some program that just tells you you have a virus. i do use the ad aware and stuff like that though
Click to expand...

And what's to keep that external hard drie from being infected by a virus?
 
sc0tty8 said:
My friend is a linux/opensource guru, and he does not use it, tells me something...
Click to expand...

sc0tty8 said:
No, he uses IE. No one likes nut scrape, and you can disable active x in ie.
Click to expand...

So he uses the special Linux/Open Source version of IE? ;) :p

-MrD
 
IceWind said:
The only virus thats managed to beat me was that gay ass blaster worm back in August of last year.

Beyond that, coupled with my now surfing of Firefox, firewall, constant patches and careful web browsing and file downloading, I have no need for a bloated AV to slow down my machine.

Quotes Walter Cronkite "And thats the way it is...."
Click to expand...
\

This is exactly what i do, althought my "firewall" is simply a router w/ all ports (except what i use) blocked. Ontop of that i run adware/spybot (becuase some sites, like my school's one, require me to use IE), and i'll find one of those free online virus scanners whenever i get bored and want to make sure everything ok. Eventually i'll invest in one, but it would only be running if i were going to scan files, and not as a real-time program. Like someone said before, i don't want it wasting resources.
 
Not running an AV on your OS is like riding a motorcycle. You are guaranteed an accident, its just a matter of time. Thinking the firewall is good enough is like saying "I lock the two back doors in my car, but not the front doors. Its not as convenient to lock them all and I'm pretty safe with the two backdoors locked." There are multiple ways to get viruses on your machine, including borrowing a burned software CD from an infected buddy. AVG has a tiny resource footprint, its free, its not intrusive, and its good. Quit being a moron and install it thereby doing your part to prevent the spread. You can always turn it off temporarily with TWO very convenient clicks. You can't get rid of AIDS by "scanning" after you've already caught it. There are some viruses that can hose you badly or spread off of your box before you even realize you are infected.
 
MY machine...
MY money...
MY DSL connection..
MY network equipment...
MY decision.....

End of discussion.
 
compslckr said:
that is my point exactly. you either know what you are doing on the net or you don't. antivirus software is just something that hogs system resources and slows down performance.

The antivirus software is not important. if you want protection a properly configured firewall is your best friend.
Click to expand...

^^ nuff said :D
 
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