Antivirus software. You guys still installing it?
- Thread starter Jesse
- Start date
21 comments
No, there is no antivirus in existence that can prevent modern viruses. Don't waste your time, shit like norton are just space heaters that consume electricity and bloat your machine. Speaking of "norton antivirus", they at one point became a crypto miner, I shit you not.
Today, the antivirus is a liability itself, don't waste your time and money, there's no way to protect yourself - never be lulled into a sense of security, you always can be infected.
- Use authenticators
- Use software like bitwarden for ssh keys and other sensetive information
- Always have windows defender enabled (it's basically built in antivirus, that's better than all antiviruses)
- Use windows as user, never as admin, thats how you get infected - your daily user having admin rights is a huge liability as everything you download becomes executable.
- Use sites like virustotal to scan links and downloads, usually thing you download (as long as you're not in admin) cannot run without interaction
- Don't fall for phishing, don't click on suspicious links.
We're living in a "zero-trust" age. Everything is compromisable, so go along your day as if you're already compromised. Your information on all apps all sites and all govermental institutes is probably already leaked on the darknet.
Today, the antivirus is a liability itself, don't waste your time and money, there's no way to protect yourself - never be lulled into a sense of security, you always can be infected.
- Use authenticators
- Use software like bitwarden for ssh keys and other sensetive information
- Always have windows defender enabled (it's basically built in antivirus, that's better than all antiviruses)
- Use windows as user, never as admin, thats how you get infected - your daily user having admin rights is a huge liability as everything you download becomes executable.
- Use sites like virustotal to scan links and downloads, usually thing you download (as long as you're not in admin) cannot run without interaction
- Don't fall for phishing, don't click on suspicious links.
We're living in a "zero-trust" age. Everything is compromisable, so go along your day as if you're already compromised. Your information on all apps all sites and all govermental institutes is probably already leaked on the darknet.
This is basically what I feel. Even way back in the day when I used AVG, I never even ran it full time. I'd just do scans here and there.
How often are you scanning to make it worth it though? I can’t even remember the last time I scanned something that wasn’t virustotal.
I might get the basic of that to run in the background to replace windows defender. I’d like to have the option of something and have it be compact. Defender can be too forceful.
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Installed bitdefender total security since it has a firewall to replace the windows one. Should be alright to run in the background. 3 years for $15 on g2g. So not bad. Stepped up to windows 11 pro while I was at it for an added $1.25 and re-ran the talon 2.0 debloater. I don't understand how anyone could possibly enjoy windows out of the box.
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Silversurfer10
Member
For Windows personal use Defender is fine. For Mac I run a full Clean My Mac scan every few weeks.
I'm liking ESET. I bought it as well to try. Bitdefender was decent, but this ESET is just better. Bitdefender you can't turn off some things without having a critical banner always show. Which makes it harder to know if there really is a critical thing to focus on.
I'm using the smart security premium. I won't use the included password manager as I have a lifetime to all Nord products, but I do like the LiveGuard and real time scanning features .
Their firewall comes pretty secured out of the box and is easy enough to mess with.
But most of all I like the secure data feature. I'm probably going to keep using this just for the secure data feature. I know there's great free software like VeraCrypt, but this is just nicer and built in.
I haven't looked much at the web/browser protection much yet. I feel pretty good there just with adguard-dns and some common sense, but I'll check it out one day.
LTEBoost.com
Member
I use Norton as my firewall and main antivirus. Maybe the person above is right that most malware works differently now, but Norton still blocks plenty of files and sites trying to mess with my PC things that Windows Defender usually lets through without any warning.
Do they have any AI feature to catch stuff that hasn't been identified yet? Like ESET
LTEBoost.com
Member
I haven’t explored all of Norton’s internal tools in detail, but as far as I know, they include their own VPN, anti-detect browser, driver updater, and breach monitor for leaked passwords and emails basically a whole ecosystem. In my opinion, that makes their interface feel a bit overloaded. Still, I noticed they have “intelligent scanning,” so it’s likely some AI features are already being used there.
That's probably it. ESET is removing some stuff now. Like password manager and child monitoring to make it less cluttered. I Like the encrypted virtual drive and encrypt an external drive feature. They best not remove that.
LTEBoost.com
Member
I haven’t used ESET in a long time. My Norton subscription expires in December, so I’ll try switching to it for a while to see how it performs.
Look now if you wanna get it cheaper before December. You can get pretty inexpensive subscriptions on G2G. They go on big sales on Amazon as well.