Questions about Antivirus and Gaming

[futurefields]

I think my antivirus (AVG FREE) might be the reason I randomly get disconnected from some online games. So I went in and added an exception for my entire Steamapps folder. Will that work, or would I need to add each game individually as an exception?

 

[imaheadcase]

Should not need to make exceptions for games. Why are you running antivirus anyways? Don't really need to anymore.

 

[KeithP]

You might try completely shutting down AVG free while playing and see if the disconnects continue. If the problem persists, then you know AVG free wasn't the source.

-KeithP

 

[Fardringle]

Why are you running antivirus anyways? Don't really need to anymore.

Wrong. Even "safe" browsing is at risk for malware from compromised web sites. I spend a good part of my time cleaning crap off of systems that never went to any questionable sites at all.

The only reason you would not need antivirus software is if the computer is completely isolated and never accesses the internet or any other computer/network.


Go with what Keith said and try temporarily disabling AVG while you are playing games to see what happens.

 

[imaheadcase]

Nope. I have not had antivirus software in maybe 5 years. Modern browsers stop installs before they happen. Most people I know don't use it, modern browsers and common sense is pretty much all you need. A good Router of course helps. Hell, even that does not matter with autobackups most people have access to. If you somehow got a virus you could be back up and running in a hour.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Nope. I have not had antivirus software in maybe 5 years. Modern browsers stop installs before they happen. Most people I know don't use it, modern browsers and common sense is pretty much all you need. A good Router of course helps. Hell, even that does not matter with autobackups most people have access to. If you somehow got a virus you could be back up and running in a hour.

Most people use Firefox and Chrome, both of which are considered modern browsers.

Most people don't use auto backups because its a pain in the arse and it takes up room on the HDD/SSD (whichever you use)

 

[Kalmah]

Nope. I have not had antivirus software in maybe 5 years. Modern browsers stop installs before they happen. Most people I know don't use it, modern browsers and common sense is pretty much all you need. A good Router of course helps. Hell, even that does not matter with autobackups most people have access to. If you somehow got a virus you could be back up and running in a hour.

Removing viruses from computers is part of my job. I clean at least 5 infected computer a day. Just last week I found over 2,000 viruses on a computer that had a fully licensed version of mcafee. I've also seen over 600 viruses on a computer with norton.

Restoring isn't always an option either. We ran across a virus that did a full drive encryption and then requires you to "submit your credit card number to pay for the virus to be removed". It spread through the subnet and infected 2 other machines as well. We had to replace the hard drives entirely and restore the os's.

Personally I haven't seen a virus in like 10 years other than on our customer machines. Not doing stupid shit really pays off.

 

[mmntech]

Restoring isn't always an option either. We ran across a virus that did a full drive encryption and then requires you to "submit your credit card number to pay for the virus to be removed". It spread through the subnet and infected 2 other machines as well. We had to replace the hard drives entirely and restore the os's.

I wouldn't wish CryptoLocker on my worse enemy.

These days, I just use Microsoft Security Essentials along with common sense browsing. I don't have AV on Linux or OSX though.