Anti-virus for my autistic sons comp.

[Stopsignhank]

My son likes to use the computer with Windows 7 on it. He like to go to youtube and other video sites. Hey if he is looking at porn I don't mind, it is a normal thing for him to do. I would like to know what anti-virus software there is I an put on his computer. I know that common sense goes a long way, but that is one thing that he is sadly lacking in.

I have had Kasperky in the past and let it lapse. We got hit by that stupid encryption malware and I had to reset the computer. Fortunately I had a back up that was not connected to the computer, but still was a PITA.

I have looked through some of the anti-virus threads and I have to admit, what some you you are talking about is confusing to me. I am not a power user. I don't want to have to monitor anything, I am looking for for an install and forget it type of thing, of course doing updates when they are needed.

Any ideas to help me out?

 

[lxskllr]

All of them, none of them? Relying on a/v is bad security. You're relying on hope at that point. Just pick a product that has few annoyances, and re-evaluate every so often. They all change, and get worse or better over time. I'd use GNU/Linux on the machine. It'll do better at preventing infection, and depending on your son's kind of autism, he might enjoy the ability to hack on the system.

 

[John Connor]

Bitdefender Free is auto updated in "the cloud" so you don't do anything. If the site has malware Bitdefender Free will alert you and prevent you from going to the site, however there is a "I understand the risks take me there anyway" link.

I would use that in combination with Sandboxie for the browser. This will run the browser in a virtual enviroment so that if there is malware Bitdefender doesn't detect it won't touch the computer. If you want to use Sandboxie tell me what browser he is using and I can tell you how to set it up.

Any file you download I would upload to Virustotal. https://www.virustotal.com/

If he is just surfing the net and watching videos perhaps an Ubuntu install would be a lot better. It pre-installs Firefox.

BTW, porn is laden with malware crap. You can add the OpenDNS DNS IP addresses to the computer or router and block it. It's up to you I guess.

 

[balloonshark]

Why not look into a light virtualization app? You can use the computer normally and if something breaks or he gets malware all you need to do is reboot and everything is back to normal. If he needs to save anything you can setup exclusions or set up that data to be save on a different non-virtualized partition. Once a month you can turn the protection off and update everything manually and then turn the protection back on.

You can add a free AV. A limited user account is also a great idea. I'll 2nd the Sandboxie suggestion. My mother's computer is setup with a limited user account, sandboxie and Avast AV.

 

[Stopsignhank]

Cool, thanks all. I am going to go home and install some of these to try and help out. unfortunately he is one of those that will "Click here". There is a very fine line between telling him not to click on these things, but then he will not click on anything. Difficult to try and be encouraging while telling him what not to do, and then it will smother him.

Thanks again!

 

[balloonshark]

I think sandboxing or virtualization is the answer in this case. If you decide to investigate further this forum should be helpful. http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forums/sandboxing-virtualization.98/

Also, AV's can be set to silent or to email you if something is found. Anti-executable is another solution to look into as the only things aloud to run are whitelisted.

 

[Captante]

Another vote for Sandboxie here. One thing to take into account when using it however is that it doesn't play nice with Chrome or Chrome based browsers like Opera which use their own sandbox. (it is possible to disable Chromes built-in sandbox to avoid conflicts but I prefer not to do so) I use it with Firefox myself and have had very few issues.

As for AV, Avast free does work very well but he will see a fair number of annoying pop-ups for various features, some of which cost money. If that's an issue consider going with a reasonably priced paid program. I've had good luck with Trend for customers who can't be trusted to touch any settings.

 

[Elixer]

I vote for having VMs as well, since he can have his...um fun, and then every night, you can wipe out the old VM, and install a new one. You have a master VM image, and you just copy that every time to a new file name, and then run that on the VM.
It is also bet if you have virtualization support on the CPU, but that isn't 100% needed, it just makes things more robust/faster.

Ads (especially flash based) are a prime vector of attacks, and it is best to block all flash based stuff, but, in cases where that isn't possible, then the next best thing is to work in a VM so it don't hose the main system when (yes, when) the VM gets infected with something.