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Best Anti-virus for a PC Gamer

P

PICBoy

Member
Hi.

I want to hear your opinions regarding which Anti-virus software is the best for a PC Gamer. The same goes for Anti-malware and firewall.

And finally, whats your opinion regarding Advanced SystemCare.
 
It may not be the best but I like microsoft security essentials, malwarebytes and windows firewall.

I think advanced systemcare is unnecessary.
 
Security Essentials (slight performance impact), with a router's firewall (little performance hit to network traffic), limited user account for daily use with a passworded admin account (no performance impact), up-to-date operating system / software (no performance impact, unless the update was bad or added features) and Windows' built-in firewall (little performance impact) should be all you need and not significantly impact performance.
 
You could also turn off the active protection while you are gaming. It's not like you are going to visit a website or download a file while your in the middle of a game. Then the antivirus footprint is 0.
 
Thanks but not all anti-virus reduce the footprint to 0 when you disable the active protection. I need to know which one can actually do that.
What's your opinion regarding Zone Alarm's FREE firewall?
 
A/V Doesn't need a footprint of zero. If your machine is so marginal that a few mb of memory, and a couple cpu cycles are affecting your games, then you built the wrong machine.

You couldn't pay me to use ZoneAlarm. Sometimes it works, but they usually correct that with an update. Windows firewall is fine.
 
i really like Norton 2011. uses pretty much no resources when doing anything active. gaming benchmarks exactly the same with it installed or uninstalled and has solid reviews on tests for catching and removing more malware than many others.
thier old AV's got a bad rep though.
 
PICBoy said:
Thanks but not all anti-virus reduce the footprint to 0 when you disable the active protection. I need to know which one can actually do that.
What's your opinion regarding Zone Alarm's FREE firewall?
Click to expand...

I personally don't use windows, but when I did, I didn't use an active antivirus. I ran weekly scans, used a sandboxed web browser and didn't download anything I didn't trust.

I've never had a virus.
 
sourceninja said:
I personally don't use windows, but when I did, I didn't use an active antivirus. I ran weekly scans, used a sandboxed web browser and didn't download anything I didn't trust.

I've never had a virus.
Click to expand...

whats funny is, there is many malware you never would have known you had. You don't always get them all by downloading. Visit a popular website where the flash ads are infecting people, view an online PDF..etc without AV's and....yeah.🙄
 
System_Mechanic said:
whats funny is, there is many malware you never would have known you had. You don't always get them all by downloading. Visit a popular website where the flash ads are infecting people, view an online PDF..etc without AV's and....yeah.🙄
Click to expand...

I don't use an AV either and I run manual scans weekly (I also rotate scanners) and have not found issues yet. It has been ~2 years now with no infections. I run Windows 7 and the three boxes that don't have an active AV protection.

So it is up to the user to decide what is best, implement best practices and keep your machine always up to date with security updates.
 
With reputable sites having their ads infected at times not running an active AV is questionable at best. Something like Microsoft Security Essentials is already very light weight and not resource intensive. We're hardly scraping for resources with the last few generations of CPUs and the cost/benefit is just weighed too heavily against the practice of not running one.
 
wayliff said:
I don't use an AV either and I run manual scans weekly (I also rotate scanners) and have not found issues yet. It has been ~2 years now with no infections. I run Windows 7 and the three boxes that don't have an active AV protection.

So it is up to the user to decide what is best, implement best practices and keep your machine always up to date with security updates.
Click to expand...

**facepalm***

see folks, this is why they say the #1 security is the user, when that fails, any subsequent measures, lol, manual scan*ahem..will remain fruitless. This kind of mentality is why botnets are so prevalent.
 
System_Mechanic said:
**facepalm***

see folks, this is why they say the #1 security is the user, when that fails, any subsequent measures, lol, manual scan*ahem..will remain fruitless. This kind of mentality is why botnets are so prevalent.
Click to expand...

to each its own...just use google and you'll find high profile individuals who dont use AVs.
However when the user gets it right then all following measures are great backups.

And you're right user is the #1 security problem.
I did not get my IT certifications and have worked on security listening to your advice.

Your mentality is what keeps people thinking AVs will protect them from anything once installed.
 
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here some links...

http://lazybit.com/index.php/2007/08/05/why_i_dont_use_an_antivirus
http://exodusdev.com/blog/mike/living-dangerously-no-anti-virus-or-firewall
http://www.questonsecurity.com/2009/04/i-dont-use-antivirus-software.html
http://www.techspot.com/guides/202-stay-safe-without-active-antivirus-protection/

and i can look up more examples...I am not suggesting the OP should do this but someone mentioned it and I wanted to share my experience.
Saying that having AV is the only way to do it...is narrow minded.
 
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System_Mechanic said:
**facepalm***

see folks, this is why they say the #1 security is the user, when that fails, any subsequent measures, lol, manual scan*ahem..will remain fruitless. This kind of mentality is why botnets are so prevalent.
Click to expand...

So your saying that my monthly boot from a liveCD and running of antivirus from there would never detect the same things having memory resident antivirus would detect? Bullshit.

The fact that no virus scanner has ever detected a single virus on my computer, and the same process has found viruses on my parents computers (who do run antivirus all the time because I know they need that kind of protection) vindicates me.

I am security conscious, even as a full time mac user I still keep up to date on all exploits. I don't run flash, I block all ads before they enter my network, I don't use acrobat reader (I stick with pdf readers with a proven track record), I never run as administrator (even on windows). On windows I even took the extra step of running my browser in a sandbox. I scan all downloads for viruses.

I'll just come out and say it, my security practices are better then 9/10 people you will find on the internet and that 10th guy probably works for a security firm.

Memory resident antivirus are for people who are either unable to control their own security, or just want that extra layer of protection. They are not bad, but they are not required. The same with running a firewall on your PC. My network has a hardware firewall and it's just my wife and myself (and she's just as good as I am). We have a separate guest network for anyone else who needs access. We leave the OS built in firewall turned on because it's there, but going out and buying/downloading another firewall product is silly.

No measure of security can protect you from yourself. Don't run as admin, don't download from untrusted sources, and use nonscript/flashblock or it's like on your browser (or sandbox your browser). The antivirus is just an double check.
 
My gaming system doesn't need any AV. I don't use it for anything other than games. I don't visit any websites and don't use email on it. My only connection to the internet is for Steam and Windows updates.
 
sourceninja said:
So your saying that my monthly boot from a liveCD and running of antivirus from there would never detect the same things having memory resident antivirus would detect? Bullshit.

The fact that no virus scanner has ever detected a single virus on my computer, and the same process has found viruses on my parents computers (who do run antivirus all the time because I know they need that kind of protection) vindicates me.

I am security conscious, even as a full time mac user I still keep up to date on all exploits. I don't run flash, I block all ads before they enter my network, I don't use acrobat reader (I stick with pdf readers with a proven track record), I never run as administrator (even on windows). On windows I even took the extra step of running my browser in a sandbox. I scan all downloads for viruses.

I'll just come out and say it, my security practices are better then 9/10 people you will find on the internet and that 10th guy probably works for a security firm.

Memory resident antivirus are for people who are either unable to control their own security, or just want that extra layer of protection. They are not bad, but they are not required. The same with running a firewall on your PC. My network has a hardware firewall and it's just my wife and myself (and she's just as good as I am). We have a separate guest network for anyone else who needs access. We leave the OS built in firewall turned on because it's there, but going out and buying/downloading another firewall product is silly.

No measure of security can protect you from yourself. Don't run as admin, don't download from untrusted sources, and use nonscript/flashblock or it's like on your browser (or sandbox your browser). The antivirus is just an double check.
Click to expand...

well said
 
System_Mechanic said:
that quote wasnt saying anything to you. Good job. you can't pay attention to posts yet you expect me to believe anything about your attention to security back when you used Windows?
Click to expand...

😱 - who is the one not paying attention?

last post - i have better things to do than prove it to you.
 
System_Mechanic said:
whats funny is, there is many malware you never would have known you had. You don't always get them all by downloading. Visit a popular website where the flash ads are infecting people, view an online PDF..etc without AV's and....yeah.🙄
Click to expand...

You don't need av software to protect yourself from Flash or PDF vulnerabilities.

Why even install Flash? Put Chrome on your system for the occasional web site that needs Flash, use FireFox running Noscript as your regular browser. For PDFs, turn off Javascript, don't allow Flash to run in multimedia trust (legacy), and in the trust manager, don't allow opening of non-PDF attachments with external applications (all found in PDF preferences).

Or simply do all your web browsing in a virtual machine and start from a known clean snapshot every time you launch.

AV/firewall software is a second line of defense. How you set up your machine and what you do with it will always be the primary way to keep malware off your system.

-KeithP
 
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