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anti-vius software? essential or a waste of money?

C

Cosmic_Horror

Golden Member
i have, over the years used a number of different Anit virus software, and since the days of our 386sx-20 only ever detected one virus and only when we had upgrade to a new AV program. We tracked the virus back to the original disk of a shareware program we had bought, which had been installed on the computer for about 12 months before detection.

AV software seems useless against the new strain of email virii, (melissa , love bug virus etc). so are they just a waste of money or are they realy esentail?
 
It's absolutely essential, IMO. At least at work, I don't know about for home use. But it's better safe than sorry. I use TrendMicro's OfficeScan for my company-wide virus software, and it's reported quite a few viruses. Who knows what stuff people are e-mailing and downloaing, especially novice users who just click anything without thinking first.
 
I've found that most of the retail AntiViral software for sale out there is no good compared to the other stuff. Norton is by far the best AV software you can buy from a place like CompUSA.

If you know how to read newsgroups, you can subscribe to alt.comp.virus and comp.virus, there is a lot of discussion about which software is better than the rest.
 
The usefulness of AV software is iffy. In order to "fully" protect yourself you need to load a ton of performance draining programs into memory. Then pray they work and don't cause conflicts with other programs (which they always do).

This is not acceptable for me so I never use those features. Basically, I just run the on demand checker over my downloads folder anytime I download from a questionable site.
 
I would rather prefer to have an anti-virus program running than to not have one at all.

On remote occasions some e-mail that I receive from colleagues are infected with some form of a virus. NAV 2k (that I have installed) detected them and gave me options as to what to do (delete, clean, isolate, or send the sample back to Symantec for analysis).

I wouldn't call it a waste. Just call it added insurance. 🙂

Like a good radar detector. Might seem useless about 98% of the time (picking up false X and K signals from the nearby quickie mart or B of A door sensors), but when the situation arises and that unit picks up a Ka or Laser from a heater, one just saved themselves a rather pricey speeding ticket. If you don't speed, please disregard. 😉

When I play games, I just disable it or turn it off.
 
i don't use OE, so i don't worry about email viruses. and i never execute a file i downloaded without scanning it first. that's all you need to do to protect yourself. my dumb dad has norton running all the time, scanning boot sectors on every bootup, searching for floppies on shutdown, scanning all downloads, yadda yadda yadda. it makes his computer incredibly slow and annoying to use.
 
I would say at work you should definately run one, if only to cover yourself if something happens. But at home I don't have one running in the background, it seems to cause more problems than it's worth. But then I only download from reasonably trustworthy sources and back up frequently; I do scan the directories I back up.
 
Konichiwa's right about about virii coming from anywhere. 5 of my hallmates were wiped out (got their drives re-formatted) by a virus that no one could find the original source of. But, the OP referred to e-mail virii that spread so dang fast your AV software might not know about them. I think Triumph has a point: of the Melissa/Love Bug type virii that have received publicity, I can't remember one that propagated through a program other than M$ Outlook or O. Express. Can y'all think of any?

I guess the main thing to consider when you're deciding to use an AV program or not is your "risk factor" (sound like sex ed, anyone?). If you don't get lots of e-mail attachments, don't use a lot of shared files, and limit your downloads to respectable sites (no warez/appz FTP), then AV programs aren't for you. Just back up your critical data VERY often and other important stuff not quite so often. On the other hand, if you get tons of e-mail attachments, use lots of shared files and programs (i.e. a campus or office-wide network), or spend all day cruising for warez, then you probably need an AV program to save yourself a major crisis down the road.

My $2x10^-2.
 
Getting a virus is just nature's way of forcing you to do a reformat, kind of like an enema is good for you even if you don't enjoy the process. 😉

I maintain several junk email accounts for the outside world and I never open any of that crap, email is a big source of the worst virii, I think it would be extremely unusual to get a virus from Tucows, Cnet, a game company, etc, even some warez sites virus scan their stuff.

If you do decide to get one, having it run concstantly creates lots of problems for some people, consider running it only to scan suspicious email or downloads.
 
I used to use Norton, but viruses were so rare that I thought it was silly to kep paying for upgrades. Needless to say I don'tuse any virus software anymore, and if I get one of those nasty visual basic scripts, or a trojan I can reformat, and reinstall windows in less than 30 minuits via my "Magical Floppy Install Disk".

All my important crap is stored on my File Server, and it's drives are NTFS (Very Friggin Secure) running Norton Anti-Virus 2000 so it's pretty solid.
 
after my last reformat i just havent bothered to reinstall norton... its not worth the trouble. i do run on NTFS, i dont know if thats worth anything as far as virus's go, but whatever.

- Jason
 
Wouldn't be without it. In fact, I use 3: Norton in real time, Ontrack's enhanced version of Trend's Pc-Cillin and MacAffee on demand. I scan everything I download 3 times. Just takes a couple more minutes.

I lost a mobo to a virus in September. I am trying my best not to have this happen again.
 
I had lots of virii on some old laptops becuase I installed some shareware programs borrowed on the library....BUMMER!

but I've never, ever gotten a virus for the past 2 years that I've had a normal computer, even though I've downloaded every possible kinds of files.....I've got a warez version of McAfee somewhere but never have it running or bother using it.
 
Norton has saved my butt a few times. Mainly from the retards I call friends who don't have any AV software. I have gotten email from them that a virus attached itself on more than one occasion. i
 
Essential?
Yes, I'm very careful but picked up a script and a worm in the last six months from links on the web.

Waste of Money?
Yes, absolutely. I paid for that McAfee junk until I discovered the best thing since Skippy Peanut Butter.....
http://www.antivirus.cai.com

it's all FREE and works great!
 
Well on an NTFS drive, you cannot read/write to the drive unless the OS allows you to, and no hardware can control the drive (or the CPU) without the OS allowcating control to it. So VB scripts tha format drives, and delete files aren't very effective on an NTFS drive - now Fat32 is a different story.
 
And when you get the whole Norton 2000 suite including Norton Antivirus for $16 shipped (See current hot deals), it makes a lot of sense to be safe than sorry !!!
 
With all the name brand software out there...you should always ask yourself before you buy...
How much will the dat file updates cost me?

Word is VirusScans are going to free in the future but they'll gut you for the dat file updates.
 
I agree with Triumph. A lot of peeps slow down the whole system with a bunch of junk when all you need to do is config your email not to open attachments automagically (duh), don't open stuff you weren't expecting, and scan what you download. I used to use Norton and McAfee. I scanned religiously. Both failed me. AVP saved the day twice, but after the fact. Now I use the A-Trend built into Ontrack's Fix-It Utilities 2000 (right click download dir and scan & the occasional complete system scan) and AVP's DOS scanner (click on shortcut to scan download dir). It is mostly a waste of money, but that's the nature of insurance. If you download a lot of stuff, especially stuff that is suspect by nature then it is essential.
 
If your fairly knowledeable with PC's and the Internet, AV software is useless 99% of the time.

At work, sure put on AV software. If you put the software you are protecting yourself if anything happens. On a college computer, there definitly needs to be AV software cause there are MANY people who use them that literally know nothing about computers.

At home, I wouldn't ever use one. I'm smart enough to not open a Visual Basic Script attachment in am email. If someone sends me a pic of them called "my_pic.exe"... come on buddy, how dumb do you think I am? I am careful in what I download by mostly downloading from trusted sites (download.com, microsoft.com, etc...), but when I do hit some warez sites to see if anything there looks cool, I'm not gonna download from some sh!tty small site. Just go to some of the bigger sites. If they put virus's in their files, they are gonna lose MANY people and lose lots of Ad Clicking money.

I have yet to get a virus in the 10 years I've been using computers. There is always the chance that I will get a virus from someone, but I feel the chance of that happening is so low, I dont even worry about it.
 
I use Norton AV, but mainly because one of the companies we deal with are always getting viruses. That they nicely send onto us.

How offen do you guys update your virus software?
 
I'd use it...some of it's a little expensive though....

I got an educational price (i'm a university student) on Norton AV2000, so it wasn't that expensive and I consider money well spent.

As for the minimal performance hit, I also consider it CPU cycles well spent.

I had Win95.CIH virus, fortunately at the time the motherboard I had didn't support BIOS flashing, so all I had to do was reinstall windows. Had I had a newer motherboard, I may have been walking to the computer store rather upset. Since, I've always kept AV software running.

You just have to make sure you get good AV software, a lot of it is poorly written so wastes CPU time, and doens't do a good job catching Viruses. But I would certainly consider AV software an essential part of a System.
 
I am also of the belief A/V programs are useless. You see the email viruses spread from Corporation to corp. You don't think IBM, microsoft and the other huge companies dont have a IT department setting AV programs onto their workers computers?
Yea I thought so 🙂. By the time they get the .dat upgrade the damage has been done. Productivity lost. Money wasted.

I used to have Norton AV and Panda, and Mcafee. After millions of conflicts. Ruined windows installs. I said you know what, if the AV is going to make me have to reinstall windows. What the hell do I care if a virus does it instead of a 60$ AV program.
 
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