I gave up on Antivirus softwares.

T

TheNuker

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 12, 2001
Messages
398
It's been five years since the last virus infected me, and it was by my own stupidity. At that time I used Norton, and after that I picked the Symantec cooporate antivirus and was kinda happy with it, but even though it uses very fewer system resources I never liked to have something running on the background all the time using cpu, but even so I left it there.

Then some time ago I "upgraded" to a newer version of Symantec just to find out it uses more resources than the previous version and increases boot time by 20 secs at least, so I decided to give NOD32 a try. It was amazingly faster than Symantec, but then I was shocked to see that when I downloaded some files, and after they got to 100% completed, NOD32 would scan em all over, using 100% of my CPU, and since some stuff were large files, it would take several minutes for each of em, rendering the computer useless for other stuff, and then when I would extract these archives, it would scan them AGAIN!. But it was "ok" then, I can live with it. Few days after using it I found out a software I used to use for more than a year stopped working, and I nailed it to be NOD's fault.

I got really frustrated then, and uninstalled NOD32. Its been months since I did that, and I'm reluctant to use an antivirus again. You ask why? I tell you why....
It's like I got a new computer ever since I got rid of antiviruses! It's so much faster, the system feels very responsive, and now WinXP boots in less than 10 seconds and memory usage with some other apps running after boot-up is 120MBs... Then I realized, that for the past five years nothing infected me, nothing even tried to get past the antivirus. I felt that there was simply no reason at all to keep using these system hogs anymore.

Then every time I read stories about the newer Norton, McAFee stuff, and after reading that post about these two companies bitching about Microsoft not allowing them access to Vista's kernel, I realized that these same guys became the evil they swore to defeat. Every new antivirus program uses more and more system resources, takes control of stuff they were not supposed to, it's like I've installed malware and PAID FOR IT :mad: .
 
Good luck with that and I hope nothing important is on your system. I do agree that a lot of av scanners really take up a look of cpu usage but I still stand behind them.
 
I like ZA security suite, its blocked alot of stuff.

are you going to get scanners that you can turn on as opposed to something that runs in the background?
 
Why not try Avast, AVG, etc? Aside from being free, they are good as well. It isn't very smart of logical to do without AV software right now...just because you've had some trouble in the past doesn't mean you should ignore valid alternatives.

On a side note, you must have had another issue with Symantec Corporate. It does take up a decent chunk of memory, but not enough to affect anything. I use it on all kinds of machines at work, and have in my previous job. Not once did it affect boot times.
 
So you would rather have your cpu sitting idle doing nothing..

i dont understand alot of people with this

Sure, if it is using %100 CPU, but if it is using like %10 usage just running to protect your system, i think that %10 usage , which is not being used ANYWAYS by anything else, is a good investment to protect your computer.

Okay, so you do something intensive, turn it off, then back on....
we have Symantecx copr 10 on system here, most ram i have ever seen it use is 30mb and cpu usage is almost nothing when sitting idle.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 30MB out of 2g's!! even 30mb out of 1g, is nothing....
 
MrGuvernment said:
So you would rather have your cpu sitting idle doing nothing..

i dont understand alot of people with this

Sure, if it is using %100 CPU, but if it is using like %10 usage just running to protect your system, i think that %10 usage , which is not being used ANYWAYS by anything else, is a good investment to protect your computer.

Okay, so you do something intensive, turn it off, then back on....
we have Symantecx copr 10 on system here, most ram i have ever seen it use is 30mb and cpu usage is almost nothing when sitting idle.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 30MB out of 2g's!! even 30mb out of 1g, is nothing....
Click to expand...
QFT~~~~~
 
and that problem you had with NOD32, is simply because you turned on HTTP checking
I always turn it off and that never happens, U don't need it, since the active monitor AMON in NOD32 is always checking shit for you
 
I still stand by NOD32. I think your difficulty may have arisen from the fact that it has an Internet Monitor, which will examine your downloads and also the NOD32 main scanner, which scans your hard drive. You could just as easily disable the internet monitor if it bothers you.

Regardless, I second what MrGuvernment said. Current CPUs and RAM will see little stress from most programs, especially since they're already sitting there idle. Hell, I run a 4400+, have two instances of folding@home, and still run NOD32 and Spysweeper in the background and I can still boot into windows fairly fast.

Otherwise, get some programs that you can turn on rather than run in the background. Get AVG free and open it when you want to scan your hard drive and then turn it off again. Same for Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D - they don't run in the background (that I know of) and you can turn them on, scan, and then turn them off.
 
drdeutsch said:
Otherwise, get some programs that you can turn on rather than run in the background. Get AVG free and open it when you want to scan your hard drive and then turn it off again. Same for Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D - they don't run in the background (that I know of) and you can turn them on, scan, and then turn them off.
Click to expand...

I've used those same three programs for a long time and have had absolutely no trouble. Well, that and paying attention to the links you click on helps too. ;) Best thing is they're all free so it costs nothing to try them. :D
 
If your smart about what your doing you can get by without a A/V. Personally, I run one just in case.
 
dBTelos said:
If your smart about what your doing you can get by without a A/V.
Click to expand...
That would have to be the fallacy of the decade, and it really scares me how many people say this on what's supposed to be a "power user" forum.
 
If you're smart, you can easily get by without an antivirus. However, why take the chance? Anti Virus software like Kaspersky takes little to no resources and keep you protected 99% of the time.
 
In this day in age, with the number of browser flaws and rootkits that exist, it isn't very smart to run without some sort of Antivirus. If you get infected with a rootkit, for the most part, its already to late to detect/repair. A good antivirus will detect the rootkit prior to it being installed.
 
I have found NOD32 to be stellar for both of my computers, but I thought this thread was about you switching to a unix variant operating system.
 
After having spent the past year doing virus/malware removal 20-40 hours a week, I'm with the OP. 99.99% of all infections I see are preventable (by not using IE for instance) and the majority are chalked up to user ignorance (P2P networks are bad, mmkay?). Half of the times the systems *do* have active, updated and functioning AV systems. Generally when I see these systems, they've been infected by the more evasive forms of malware out there, while the ones that lack AV often have a lot of minor infections as well. So it does work to a degree, but only for so long, and its usually the worst that end up getting through.

And I have yet to come across an infection that I have been unable to successfully and completely remove. I often find myself using a PE disk to clear newer malware variants that don't have a removal tool that works on them yet, but thats about the worst of what I need to go through. In corporate environments, wiping a machine is often a good idea for peace of mind and security, but for your average home user, there's nothing currently out there that I've come across that can't be removed with some persistance or a trip to your local IT dept. or tech-savvy friend.

With that said, I highly encourage anyone that goes without antivirus software to be familiar with the processes running on their system and to check out any new ones that appear to crop up out of no where. I'll go through and check my HJT! log to see if I'm seeing anything new or unusual, as well as running the occasional AdAware or Spybot scans, but I've yet to have an infection in the past several years that I didn't do intentionally . . . (yes, I've infected my system intentionally).
 
Oooska said:
And I have yet to come across an infection that I have been unable to successfully and completely remove.
Click to expand...
And this is where all logic and common sense break down. With a simple understanding of the types of threats around today, knowing what ou are doing, or being able to remove the vius doesn't EVER take the place of preventing the infection. Take rootkits for example, without AV software, you would have no idea you had one. Being able to remove a virus is great, but you've already allowed it to infect your system, possibly doing it's damage or replicating to another machine, all before you were aware.

Please, stop spreaing this BS around, because we're going to need shovels and boots soon. I'm not directing that at one single person, but to anyone who thinks they know how to prevent viruses. Use your heads a little, and realize the internet is a shared network. The more you know about computers and networks, the more you realize why it's necessary to have AV software. These threads are giving people the wrong message, and can easily lead someone to think they don't need the software.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top