Do I really need antivirus programs running?

corporate environments are totally different then home environments so I don't know why people keep linking the 2 together

The only way they have been linked together here is through best practice- look it up.
And I'm sorry Leather, but your qualifications mean jack, squat, and nada if you don't follow best practices. You claim certifications from the very same organizations you ignore for their best practices.
Before anyone else claims to be THE system admin for the Pope or NSA or some such nonsense, and then claims to not only NOT run A/M AND disable built-in security- just be aware that everyone's BS meter went off the charts. There is no credibiliy.
And for those saying "I'm not recommending it, I'm just saying I do it"... There are plenty of things you do that I don't want to hear about. If you aren't adding to the discussion, why are you posting? Trolling?
Let's assume you actually can manage your way out of a loopback address- why would you advocate (in an open forum) poor security practices that you yourself 'would not recommend to anyone'??? What kind of admin experience do you actually have, thinking it is OK to spout off bad advice to people who may not know the pitfalls???
If you know the pitfalls, it's on your head. I've got that one. But why would you not give full and complete info to others who might not know?
 
I'm THE best sysadmin for the Pope.

darth_ratzinger_Pope_Palpatine_by_zman08.jpg


Damn straight! :D


maybe people would take you more seriously if you didn't try and insult everyone who has a different opinion then you
It's not that they have different opinions, it's just that they don't make sense and are bad practice in general.
RocketTech is spot-on.
 
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The only way they have been linked together here is through best practice- look it up.
And I'm sorry Leather, but your qualifications mean jack, squat, and nada if you don't follow best practices. You claim certifications from the very same organizations you ignore for their best practices.
Before anyone else claims to be THE system admin for the Pope or NSA or some such nonsense, and then claims to not only NOT run A/M AND disable built-in security- just be aware that everyone's BS meter went off the charts. There is no credibiliy.
And for those saying "I'm not recommending it, I'm just saying I do it"... There are plenty of things you do that I don't want to hear about. If you aren't adding to the discussion, why are you posting? Trolling?
Let's assume you actually can manage your way out of a loopback address- why would you advocate (in an open forum) poor security practices that you yourself 'would not recommend to anyone'??? What kind of admin experience do you actually have, thinking it is OK to spout off bad advice to people who may not know the pitfalls???
If you know the pitfalls, it's on your head. I've got that one. But why would you not give full and complete info to others who might not know?

Its also best practice to use a standard user account daily and only log onto the Administrator account when needed, do you do that at home?

Its also best practice to rename the Administrator account and create a standard user account named Administrator, do you do that at home?

If you don't do both of the above (and many other best practices) you are a hypocrite.
 
^ I'm sorry, but Windows is not a secure OS, at all; yes I know there is no such thing as a truly 100% secure OS, but just about anything else is far better than Windows.
It is so easy to break the registry and script-hack a Windows system without admin privileges that it's not even funny.

Those techniques you are doing might keep your annoying know-it-all uncle out of the gui, but the back-end will be completely compromised by just using those methods alone.
Don't get me wrong, they are certainly better than nothing and might fool some noobie hackers, but even a semi-competent individual with malicious intent will get right through those "practices" of yours.
 
^ I'm sorry, but Windows is not a secure OS, at all; yes I know there is no such thing as a truly 100% secure OS, but just about anything else is far better than Windows.
It is so easy to break the registry and script-hack a Windows system without admin privileges that it's not even funny.

Those techniques you are doing might keep your annoying know-it-all uncle out of the gui, but the back-end will be completely compromised by just using those methods alone.
Don't get me wrong, they are certainly better than nothing and might fool some noobie hackers, but even a semi-competent individual with malicious intent will get right through those "practices" of yours.

Okay, so when it comes to following best practices that Microsoft recommends you don't agree with you are fine?

But when it comes to avoiding best practices you personally agree with then somebody is wrong?

You sir, are a hypocrite.

Also, In regards to only keeping out your annoying know it all uncle, you also fucked yourself. No real hacker is going to try to hack a network with a virus or trojan that is know about. A real hacker is going to develop his own virus/trojan, in which case your antivirus is going to be useless.
 
^ If you were a real pro, you wouldn't use Windows to begin with. :rolleyes:
The fact that you use Windows with no AV or anti-malware just shows how blind to the times you really are.

You keep speaking about viruses and trojans, when the real threat is malware.
You don't seem to get this concept, hackers are not interested in breaking your damn OS, they want your account info.

No, a real hacker would write an executable script, embed it within a website, then let hapless individuals such as yourself download them and unknowingly execute them (not talking about exe files, btw) in your precious sandbox environments, and then keylog your account info.

You sir, are complete fail.
 
Another thing, why not run an AV program with live-scan functions and anti-malware apps?
From what every single person who doesn't use AV on here, states that they don't want it eating up CPU cycles.

Are you guys all stuck in the 90's or something?
MSE eats about 2-3% of a single core on a five-year-old 1.8GHz Core 2 processor while scanning, and about 1% when idle.

So... are you all still rocking Pentium II's or something?
FFS, people, get with the times.
 
^ If you were a real pro, you wouldn't use Windows to begin with. :rolleyes:
The fact that you use Windows with no AV or anti-malware just shows how blind to the times you really are.

You keep speaking about viruses and trojans, when the real threat is malware.
You don't seem to get this concept, hackers are not interested in breaking your damn OS, they want your account info.

No, a real hacker would write an executable script, embed it within a website, then let hapless individuals such as yourself download them and unknowingly execute them (not talking about exe files, btw) in your precious sandbox environments, and then keylog your account info.

You sir, are complete fail.

So the multiple hundreds of thousands of company's around the world who use Windows are not professionals?

I am afraid you know nothing of which you are speaking. Go fix grandma's computers some more, you probably work for BestBuy. (if you are even in the IT Industry at all)

I am 100% certain you are the only failure in this thread.
 
^ From what I can see, everyone else seems to be disagreeing with your two-bit asinine opinions. :rolleyes:

You shouldn't be so quick to judge others.
You've already stated how much exp. + certs you have, yet you have also shown us how little you know.

Sad that those of us with less exp. and few to no certs know far more than you. Sad, really.
 
Another thing, why not run an AV program with live-scan functions and anti-malware apps?
From what every single person who doesn't use AV on here, states that they don't want it eating up CPU cycles.

Are you guys all stuck in the 90's or something?
MSE eats about 2-3% of a single core on a five-year-old 1.8GHz Core 2 processor while scanning, and about 1% when idle.

So... are you all still rocking Pentium II's or something?
FFS, people, get with the times.

Its not the processor, its the hard drive. Real time scanners read the contents of the file before windows (or anything) is allowed, normally this is not an issue on modern systems like you said. But for certain tasks that are high in IOPS it can make a big difference.
 
Its not the processor, its the hard drive. Real time scanners read the contents of the file before windows (or anything) is allowed, normally this is not an issue on modern systems like you said. But for certain tasks that are high in IOPS it can make a big difference.

It's called a SSD! OMFG!
Seriously?!

Get with the fucking times! :eek: :eek: :eek:
Also, your sig shows you have a SSD... so why no AV, eh, hypocrite?

Damn.
HDDs from 10 years ago could handle a live-scan AV just fine, now all of sudden HDDs from 2012 can't because of the IOPS?
Are you for real??? :eek:

That's the dumbest reason ever for not using AV; just use a SSD if you need IOPS, they can do far more than any HDD ever could.
Or did you not even know that? :rolleyes:

What "certain tasks" are you doing that require so many IOPS that you can't even begin to use an AV?
Please answer me this, because what you are saying is totally ludicrous, especially on a Windows desktop.

I take back what I said about you earlier.
You sir, are TOTAL fail.
 
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It's called a SSD! OMFG!
Seriously?!

Get with the fucking times! :eek: :eek: :eek:
Also, your sig shows you have a SSD... so why no AV, eh, hypocrite?

Damn.
HDDs from 10 years ago could handle a live-scan AV just fine, now all of sudden HDDs from 2012 can't because of the IOPS?
Are you for real??? :eek:

That's the dumbest reason ever for not using AV; just use a SSD if you need IOPS, they can do far more than any HDD ever could.
Or did you not even know that? :rolleyes:


I take back what I said about you earlier.
You sir, are TOTAL fail.

Did I ever say disk access times were the reason I don't use an antivirus? No.

Remember I currently use an antivirus. I was just stating that if I was to reinstall windows, I would not take the time to reinstall AV, one would call that lazy. :p
 
Did I ever say disk access times were the reason I don't use an antivirus? No.

Remember I currently use an antivirus. I was just stating that if I was to reinstall windows, I would not take the time to reinstall AV, one would call that lazy. :p

Did I ever say anything about "disk access times"?
No, no I did not.

Now you say you are using AV, but yet you won't because of disk IOPS for certain tasks, yet you just stated that you are?
You are failing on an epic level now.

one would call that lazy.
No, one would call that a fucking hypocrite. :rolleyes:
 
Did I ever say anything about disk "access times"?
No, no I did not.

You are failing on an epic level now.

No, you were under the assumption that antivirus slows down PC's because of CPU usage, when infact the bottleneck in most modern PC's is disk access, which is why I was informing you that antivirus could slow down a PC because it just adds more overhead during disk usage.

You are absolutely correct in the fact that no modern CPU should have trouble with running an antivirus.
 
No, you were under the assumption that antivirus slows down PC's because of CPU usage, when infact the bottleneck in most modern PC's is disk access, which is why I was informing you that antivirus could slow down a PC because it just adds more overhead during disk usage.

You are absolutely correct in the fact that no modern CPU should have trouble with running an antivirus.

Disk access /= IOPS, just fyi. :rolleyes:
Do you know anything???

That 15 years of exp. + all of your certs certainly aren't showing, that much is damn certain.

MSE will not slow down any system in the last decade, regardless of SSD or HDD; maybe a HDD from the late 90's, and believe me, I've worked with plenty of those to know so. :rolleyes:
Perhaps you are thinking of McAfail and Symansuck, in which case, even a SSD would be no match for those malware-apps-in-disguise.

However, no one with any brains or knowledge of MSE would use such software.
 
Red Falcon, I respect your opinion that everyone should be running an antivirus, I never said otherwise. I was simply stating what I do on my personal computer (which has nothing to do with an enterprise/business environment.) If you do not agree with what I personally do on my own personal PC that is fine. (I should also mention that I run 1.52vcore on an Ivy Bridge CPU, I must be on a death wish according to many)

You seem to have a major stick in your ass, no point in arguing with someone like you over the internet.

Again, I respect your opinion on this subject matter, you are not incorrect about this issue but you seem to feel that because not everyone has the same exact opinion as you, they are idiots. I am done, may you forever have an amazing career fixing grandmas computer.
 
Again, I respect your opinion on this subject matter
Um... this is what you said earlier:
Go fix grandma's computers some more, you probably work for BestBuy. (if you are even in the IT Industry at all)
I am 100% certain you are the only failure in this thread.

Yeah... no, you don't respect my opinions at all. :rolleyes:
You can't back what you state, you have little to no knowledge of which you speak, and you are constantly contradicting yourself with what little knowledge you have.

In other words, you're a complete fucking hypocrite, but honestly, I really don't care.


but you seem to feel that because not everyone has the same exact opinion as you,
Um, no. This is what I said:
It's not that they have different opinions, it's just that they don't make sense and are bad practice in general.
Just keep digging yourself a bigger hole.
Oh, and you never did answer my question about what "tasks" you were running that eat up IOPS, or did you mean disk access times, considering neither is the same and you stated both, so... whichever you were talking about. :rolleyes:


You seem to have a major stick in your ass
The only stick-up-an-ass I see here is leeleatherwood! :D :p


I am done, may you forever have an amazing career fixing grandmas computer.
If your employers ever get wind of your true knowledge, or lack-there-of, you might just end up doing that.
I do know you sure as hell wouldn't get hired by anyone who truly knows the differences between certifications and real knowledge; enjoy that job while you can!
The sad thing is, is that even after those 15 years of exp. and all of those certs, you still don't know crap about this type of technology.
 
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the fact that you recommend MSE over all others says a lot about your 'expertise' :D

It's damn good for stand-alone home systems.
No, I would not use it in an enterprise environment, for obvious reasons like lack of management, but it otherwise is one of Microsoft's few rock-solid products.

Why? What would you recommend?
And please, don't say Kaspersky, Symantec/Norton, AVG, or McAfee.

They are all bloated and are easily breakable/corruptible.
I have yet to see one instance of MSE break or become corrupted.

Some might argue Kaspersky and AVG, but again, I've seen them break far too many times to be trusted fully.
Still, they are better than nothing though.
 
Why? What would you recommend?

I used Kaspersky previous to my Sandboxie days...but NOD32 is another I would recommend...the bloat is not nearly as bad as it was years ago...apparently even Norton got much better recently

I would only use MSE if I was looking for a free AV...if you look at the recent AV-Comparitives study MSE is pretty bad at proactive defense...low resource usage alone does not make a good AV
 
^ NOD32 ftw, ESET rocks, especially in enterprise environments.
I'm still not trusting of Norton enough to use them, and Symantec Endpoint (used to be Corporate Edition) has horrible quarantine capabilities that allow worms to infinitely replicate within it.

Wow, something we can agree on!? What is this sorcery??? :D
It's too bad leeleatherwood went away though, I was really enjoying his 15 years of certified noobery. :p
 
^ NOD32 ftw, ESET rocks, especially in enterprise environments.
I'm still not trusting of Norton enough to use them, and Symantec Endpoint (used to be Corporate Edition) has horrible quarantine capabilities that allow worms to infinitely replicate within it.

Wow, something we can agree on!? What is this sorcery??? :D

still the fact that you keep going on about how amazing MSE is shows your lack of knowledge about AV...all you seem to care about is low resource usage...last I checked actual detection of viruses, spyware, malware was most important and in that area Kaspersky has been king for years with MSE in the middle of the pack
 
I used Kaspersky previous to my Sandboxie days...but NOD32 is another I would recommend...the bloat is not nearly as bad as it was years ago...apparently even Norton got much better recently

I would only use MSE if I was looking for a free AV...if you look at the recent AV-Comparitives study MSE is pretty bad at proactive defense...low resource usage alone does not make a good AV

While MSE is not as thorough as others, it runs totally in the background, is free, uses very few system resources and updates right along with Windows Update. That means that typical (non-technical) users will leave it enabled because they won't even realize it's running. That's more important than you might think, because I've seen many times when someone has let their subscription run out on an AV product, or disabled it due to performance issues or nagging popups. With it being standard on Windows 8, I suspect it will become even more thorough pretty rapidly as Microsoft collects data on it across an even bigger sample.
 
still the fact that you keep going on about how amazing MSE is shows your lack of knowledge about AV...all you seem to care about is low resource usage...last I checked actual detection of viruses, spyware, malware was most important and in that area Kaspersky has been king for years with MSE in the middle of the pack

I won't fully disagree with you there, but the fact that it is fairly easy for malware to corrupt (via *.exe files and registry-entries) Kaspersky is really what has kept me away from it, especially for stand-alone home or SOHO systems.
I've simply seen too many instances of it break, in recent years and months, for me to recommend it.

It doesn't do much good to have a decent AV program if it breaks, and the clients don't notice or can't notice.

Also, I never said I cared about low resource usage, I was simply showing examples of it earlier; it was actually leeleatherwood who seemed to care more about the resources-side of it.
If I did though, quote me and I will totally admit my fault. ;)
 
While MSE is not as thorough as others, it runs totally in the background, is free, uses very few system resources and updates right along with Windows Update. That means that typical (non-technical) users will leave it enabled because they won't even realize it's running. That's more important than you might think, because I've seen many times when someone has let their subscription run out on an AV product, or disabled it due to performance issues or nagging popups. With it being standard on Windows 8, I suspect it will become even more thorough pretty rapidly as Microsoft collects data on it across an even bigger sample.

Exactly.
For non-enterprise, stand alone systems with non-technical users and clients, MSE is almost a must.
 
the fact that you recommend MSE over all others says a lot about your 'expertise' :D

the fact you doubt mse shows your "expertise"

Now, if your talking management side in a corporate environment sure.. but MSE isnt meant for that so you cant really compare it..but for free vs boatloads fo $$$.. can you complain? or would you rather people use AVG :rolleyes:
 
If your on-access scanning is slowing down your box fill up the exemptions list with crap you don't want to be scanned. It's not really that hard.
 
If your on-access scanning is slowing down your box fill up the exemptions list with crap you don't want to be scanned. It's not really that hard.

Apparently it is if you have 15 years of experience, multiple certifications, and have the user name 'leeleatherwood'. :p
 
Back when I did run windows, I had an antivirus, antitrojan, running HIPS like processguard, Prevx, and AntiHook, was using tiny firewall.

I'd get 20 confirmation pop-ups just to shutoff my computer, lol.
 
everyone in this thread should ignore Red Falcon, he works for the geeksquad and we all know about their level of intelligence.
 
Back when I did run windows, I had an antivirus, antitrojan, running HIPS like processguard, Prevx, and AntiHook, was using tiny firewall.

I'd get 20 confirmation pop-ups just to shutoff my computer, lol.

Then you saw the light and now run Linux and UNIX. :cool:
 
everyone in this thread should ignore Red Falcon, he works for the geeksquad and we all know about their level of intelligence.

Dude, you fail, so, so much.
Once again, don't judge a person by their job.

Your job rocks, and yet you know jack shit about anything. :rolleyes:
So even if I did work at Geek Squad, that would mean a person working at Geek Squad knows far more than you could ever hope to.

I hope those certs keep you warm at night, because I know for a fact that nothing other than a robot would sleep next to your ass *cough* I mean face.


Seriously though, got your PM, it's been fun.
Take it easy and have a [H]ard night! ;) :cool:

tumblr_maolpgNclz1qh0tjc.gif
 
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Dude, you fail, so, so much.
Once again, don't judge a person by their job.

Your job rocks, and yet you know jack shit about anything. :rolleyes:
So even if I did work at Geek Squad, that would mean a person working at Geek Squad knows far more than you could ever hope to.

I hope those certs keep you warm at night, because I know for a fact that nothing other than a robot would sleep next to your ass *cough* I mean face.


Seriously though, got your PM, it's been fun.
Take it easy and have a [H]ard night! ;) :cool:

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maolpgNclz1qh0tjc.gif[IMG][/QUOTE]

touche.
 
the fact you doubt mse shows your "expertise"

Now, if your talking management side in a corporate environment sure.. but MSE isnt meant for that so you cant really compare it..but for free vs boatloads fo $$$.. can you complain? or would you rather people use AVG :rolleyes:

you're just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative...my post was easy to understand...it was based on comparing MSE to ALL OTHERS based on Red Falcon's obsession over it...never said I doubted MSE...it's a decent FREE solution for those that are broke and can't afford a real AV or are too lazy...but compared to others like Kaspersky, NOD32 etc it pales in comparison
 
whats someone going to do with my online bank account information? check my balance? scary stuff. Ok enough of that, sometimes i run av somtimes i forget, I've been infected several times with different crap. I'm pretty careful i know what links not to click, heh for a while everytime i went to pirate bay i picked up something, and no i never clicked on any of the stuff, just went to the page.
 
you're just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative...my post was easy to understand...it was based on comparing MSE to ALL OTHERS based on Red Falcon's obsession over it...never said I doubted MSE...it's a decent FREE solution for those that are broke and can't afford a real AV or are too lazy...but compared to others like Kaspersky, NOD32 etc it pales in comparison

I'm just wondering if you totally skipped the fact that Kaspersky and others are easy to break? I think it was mentioned that the best scanner in the world won't do much good if it's broken. The main point for MSE is that it's good (no one said the best) and easy to use. Plus less easily broken.

whats someone going to do with my online bank account information? check my balance? scary stuff. Ok enough of that, sometimes i run av somtimes i forget, I've been infected several times with different crap. I'm pretty careful i know what links not to click, heh for a while everytime i went to pirate bay i picked up something, and no i never clicked on any of the stuff, just went to the page.

Sorry, I don't have a good facepalm pic to put here. Could everyone just imagine there favorite one right here? Thanks. :D
 
Reading this thread makes me feel like having a UTM at the edge of my network and AV on all my machines (including OSX), is much overkill. Anyone want to purchase a SonicWALL TZ215, it's obviously not needed if I'm smart.
 
I'm just going to throw this out there, that if the OP is asking if he needs virus protection, we can assume that a solution such as MSE is going to work well for him.

Saying flat out you don't need an AV solution is stupid.

Also @leeleatherwood some people who work for Geek Squad know what they are doing, and are very technically minded, they just don't happen to work at Geek Squad for long.
 
I'm just wondering if you totally skipped the fact that Kaspersky and others are easy to break? I think it was mentioned that the best scanner in the world won't do much good if it's broken. The main point for MSE is that it's good (no one said the best) and easy to use. Plus less easily broken.

I've never heard of Kaspersky or any of the other highly touted AV software 'breaking'...I'm sure it does happen but Falcon makes it seem like it's a common occurence...sounds more like paranoia...MSE is good for what it is- a free solution for the people that don't have the expertise

the best scanner in the world won't do much good if its broken but an average scanner (MSE) also won't do as much good if it's only mediocre when it comes to detecting new viruses in the wild
 
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