Best Anti-Virus options?

jeydax

jeydax

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Quineloe_sl said:
and where's that coming from?
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Ineffective could be a misnomer but really at the end of the day what do you want from an anti-virus? To prevent viruses (viri? virus'?) from infecting your computer. MSE/Windows Defender is simple, it uses VERY little resources which is a major plus but it is definitely towards the bottom of the barrel when it comes to detection rates:

July 2013:Best Antivirus - Page 6 | Maximum PC
Using our own collection of malware, Avast detected twice as many dirty files as Windows Defender
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Feb 2013:AV-TEST - The Independent IT-Security Institute: Jan/Feb 2013- Sort by protection, MSE/WD is dead last and flunked their certification.

I could link many more but there is no question that MSE/Windows Defender does a very poor job when it comes to detecting viruses compared to the other options on the market.

Having said that, it is what I still "use" but am considering getting Norton or Eset just in case.
 
Noodleface

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What do you guys do on the internet that viruses are such a big deal?

I imagine me in 1999 on AOL downloading "progz" and getting viruses all day. If I torrent stuff usually it's music/video and the occasional pirated game where I will just run a scan on the folder.

My family on the other hand... ugh. My mother had an older HP laptop (single core) and had acquired an immeasurable amount of trojans and viruses. I used MalwareBytes to clean it up, and because her PC was so bogged down it took me around 36 hours of it scanning nonstop to finally finish. The PC was by no means fast afterwards, but I honestly couldn't believe a human would let their PC get in that shape.
 
Void

Void

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It isn't even really viruses that are the problem nowadays, it is all the bloatware. Some guy at work installed Google Earth, and Malwarebytes came up with 415 hits. After looking at them I determined that whatever method he used to download and install Google Earth had installed 8 other programs, including a toolbar, a survey program, etc. Every single one of them came up as PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) on Malwarebytes, but they aren't really "dangerous" so to speak. I was able to simply uninstall each of them and then run Malwarebytes again to clean up any leftovers (only 15 or so that time), so they weren't actively doing anything malicious I'm sure, but imagine if he'd done that a few more times and didn't know to run Malwarebytes and panic over 400+ hits, which prompted him to come get me? Insert jpg of browser covered in toolbars here.

I helped another person (over the phone) clean up ONE issue on their computer a month ago, and told them to download Hitman Pro as another check to make sure everything was clear...in the process of downloading that, they clicked the wrong download button somewhere and ended up with a ton of other shit installed too. It boggles my mind, but at the rate I see it I have to imagine it happens all the fucking time. That shit is almost worse than viruses nowadays.
 
agripa

agripa

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Newegg was running a deal on eset 3 licenses for 15 bucks, not sure if still going on.
 
Eomer

Eomer

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Yeah, it's pretty bad these days, some webpages when you go to download something (ironically, sometimes for malware scanning software) there's like 15 other "download" links on them. Us savvy nerds can get through that fine, but the average person is going to end up clicking on a bunch of shit they don't need or want before they get it right.
 
Falstaff

Falstaff

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No shit. Even when you update java they try to get you to install the Ask toolbar and mcafee or something else like that.
 
jeydax

jeydax

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Noodleface_sl said:
What do you guys do on the internet that viruses are such a big deal?

I imagine me in 1999 on AOL downloading "progz" and getting viruses all day. If I torrent stuff usually it's music/video and the occasional pirated game where I will just run a scan on the folder.

My family on the other hand... ugh. My mother had an older HP laptop (single core) and had acquired an immeasurable amount of trojans and viruses. I used MalwareBytes to clean it up, and because her PC was so bogged down it took me around 36 hours of it scanning nonstop to finally finish. The PC was by no means fast afterwards, but I honestly couldn't believe a human would let their PC get in that shape.
Click to expand...
It isn't really that anyone here (I imagine most people on FoH/Rerolled are smarter than the average interwebber) is clicking on every Facebook link or downloading random torrents off of Pirate Bay or something. I doubt viruses are big deal for any of us here - I can only think of getting a virus one time I may have legitimately had a virus. The amount of resources anti-viruses take up nowadays is fuckall compared to what it used to be, so why even risk running rawdawg when you can get a good AV for damn cheap?
 
lindz

lindz

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I recently had price companion malware that I couldn't get rid of with malware removal or antivirus. Finally just uninstalled chrome and cleaned up registry files before reinstalling which seemed to get rid of it. I don't browse anywhere suspect or click a ton of links, still happens though. :\
 
spronk

spronk

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can't beat free avg or free avast (they seem to flip flop in "best of" lists every year), and then malwarebytes on top you schedule to run once a day or buy mwb-pro for $5-15 if its a relatives PC, since you can turn on active website real-time blocking.
http://free.avg.com
http://avast.com/free
Malwarebytes : Free Anti-Malware

and for those who scoff at "how the fuck do you noobs get malware", download and run a full scan with MWB you may be surprised.
 
Lanx

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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you cannot run 2 anti-virus but you can run your antivirus of choice
MSE
avast
eset
avg

and webroot, webroot takes like no resources, and barely installs, i think it's 40bucks for a 3pc license.

i'm the geek, but i always refuse to fix anyones computer problems besides family, 2 years ago my nephew had a slew of computer issues, i don't want to know or pretend to know if he discoved torrents or whatever web-sites, but i had to rebuild his file associations over the phone. he also had a report due... bleh

this lead me to find out about webroot, obviously mse wasn't cutting it and ever since he installed it, i haven't gotten a single "virus" or "computer fucked up" call in 2 years.
i am glad to hell to pay 40bucks a year so my nephew doesn't bother me, hell i'm gonna have to renew soon ha.

for me personally i use avast free and winpatrol. winpatrol is old and not an anti-virus per say, but i will notify me (and stop/allow/disavow) whenever some shitty ass program bloatware tries to install on startup or other stuff like that, and since i pay for 3 licenses and my nephew is using 2 i use webroot as well.
 
T

The Ancient_sl

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jeydax_sl said:
Ineffective could be a misnomer but really at the end of the day what do you want from an anti-virus? To prevent viruses (viri? virus'?) from infecting your computer. MSE/Windows Defender is simple, it uses VERY little resources which is a major plus but it is definitely towards the bottom of the barrel when it comes to detection rates:

July 2013:Best Antivirus - Page 6 | Maximum PC
Click to expand...
It's unfortunate we are talking about two different things. The people recommending MSE are likely running Windows 7, which MSE is great for. Windows Defender for 8(the MSE equivalent) doesn't get as high a rating as MSE does for 7. Since the OP was asking for a Windows 8 system, this advice is solid.
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Vvoid_sl said:
It isn't even really viruses that are the problem nowadays, it is all the bloatware. Some guy at work installed Google Earth, and Malwarebytes came up with 415 hits. After looking at them I determined that whatever method he used to download and install Google Earth had installed 8 other programs, including a toolbar, a survey program, etc. Every single one of them came up as PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) on Malwarebytes, but they aren't really "dangerous" so to speak. I was able to simply uninstall each of them and then run Malwarebytes again to clean up any leftovers (only 15 or so that time), so they weren't actively doing anything malicious I'm sure, but imagine if he'd done that a few more times and didn't know to run Malwarebytes and panic over 400+ hits, which prompted him to come get me? Insert jpg of browser covered in toolbars here.

I helped another person (over the phone) clean up ONE issue on their computer a month ago, and told them to download Hitman Pro as another check to make sure everything was clear...in the process of downloading that, they clicked the wrong download button somewhere and ended up with a ton of other shit installed too. It boggles my mind, but at the rate I see it I have to imagine it happens all the fucking time. That shit is almost worse than viruses nowadays.
Click to expand...
Curious, you running Malwarebytes Enterprise?
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Quineloe_sl said:
So MS decided their product was too good and for win 8 decided to go back to shit roots?
Click to expand...
Personally, all the standard "AV" products suck. They all do a pretty decent job of detecting viruses, but are usually useless at removing them. We evaluated at work MSE, Symantec, McAfee, Trend, and Sophos-- namely their ability to prevent and/or remove the "fake-AV" virus-- that annoying as shit hostageware that prevents you from running anything except IE to buy their fake product, and though all of them detected it, none could remove it except through a manual scan of Malwarebytes/Superantispyware. Same results with similar viruses. AV software in my world basically accomplishes nothing more than notifying me that a computer is going to need malwarebytes run on it :/
 
Zodiac

Zodiac

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Bleh, I have not ran an AV in like 10 years on my personal PC. I ran that malwarebytes thing and the only thing it ever found were tracking cookies which I could give two shits about. If you are not a retard you won't get infected. All AV pretty much sucks anyways. We run Symantec endpoint at work and we only really have to worry about the few people with admin. Without admin rights/locked down browser settings 99% of our users can't get malware. The few people who can get crap Symantec does a pretty terrible job of removal anyways.
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Zodiac_sl said:
Bleh, I have not ran an AV in like 10 years on my personal PC. I ran that malwarebytes thing and the only thing it ever found were tracking cookies which I could give two shits about. If you are not a retard you won't get infected. All AV pretty much sucks anyways. We run Symantec endpoint at work and we only really have to worry about the few people with admin. Without admin rights/locked down browser settings 99% of our users can't get malware. The few people who can get crap Symantec does a pretty terrible job of removal anyways.
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Yeah, wish we could remove people's admin rights here-- too many custom apps that need it, and/or execs that go Hitler mode when they try to download/install things and can't. We run Websense, plus a botnet filter on the firewall, but we still get a few infections per week, which require a tech visit to run malwarebytes. That's why I asked Vvoid if he runs the Enterprise version, as I'm thinking of evaluating that. At best, it can prevent infection, at worst we can at least run the cleanup remotely.
 
Void

Void

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Nope, just the standard version. Well, unless you're going to turn me in, then of course I use the Enterprise version.

But no. Unfortunately we just have desktop computers for everyone, so everything is pretty much wide open for the user to fuck up however they desire. I'm not an IT guy, but I'm the closest thing we've got, so I do the best I can. MSE plus weekly scans with Malwarebytes usually catches most of the stuff, but I've probably had around 1 big infection every month or two (15 users total). The best one was when my conspiracy theory coworker got the virus that "locks" your computer with a big message saying that the NSA has seized your computer...unless you pay a fine right now of course. Despite being annoyed as shit having to clean it, I laughed afterward at how freaked out she was.
 
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