The Highs and Lows of Antivirus Programs

[Thehandyman1957]

I think one of the biggest reasons I dislike most paid, heck even most free anti virus programs these days is that even on a good system it really can drag a system down with all the stuff going on in the background. I have worked on systems that were super snappy and then after installing the customers preferred Anti virus software the thing turns into a turd. That was one of the reasons I really liked Avast because you could custom install and turn off all the scanners you didn't need. I personally hated the idea of a file scanner because every little thing you did on your computer took twice to three times as long. Especially if you had a slower hard drive. Now with my SSD I hardly noticed it. But most folks I know still have not made a transition to that technology.

But for the folks that really don't know how to harden their system I can understand the file scanner thing.

Now the whole thing Moonchild was talking about.

With this kind of internet security (IS) setup "checking' your https traffic, they become a man in the middle (because encrypted traffic can't be inspected)

I'm wondering if it does that even at it's basic install?

Or do you have to install the web monitoring part?

[dark_moon]

Off-topic:
@Thehandyman1957
Can you please post your avatar picture in big? Like it

[Thehandyman1957]

Off-topic:
@Thehandyman1957
Can you please post your avatar picture in big? Like it

Here ya go, I had to slow it down a bit because it seemed to just fly on this site, as you can see it's even faster now than on my Avatar.
So if you download it and find it's to slow you can just use this site http://ezgif.com/effects
It's the site I used to shrink it down so I could use it here.

Data Rage Windows Blue Screen.gif (1.59 MiB) Viewed 3449 times

[31816]

i use norton. paid version. it really does a grand job blocking attacks. paid is better than free imho. i know of a few people who dont use an anti virus program.

Norton is a joke at best.

its no laughing matter when your pc gets infected with a dozen viruses and have to wait 3 days while the tech dept eradicated all of them..and was faced with a 350 dollar bill. -thats what happened to me in 2008. dumbfoundedly i had thought i had the 30 day free anti virus program installed, but forgot to activate it. norton blocks all incoming attacks. even seemingly innocent downloads of reputable programs..i wont say which ones.

[dark_moon]

You better backup your daty regularly, secure your system and if infected you need to erase the whole system or use a clean image.
This is the only way to get back a secure system. Only remove the malware can't give a 100% clean system.

So you save time, (use a image only takes 30 minutes), problems with the infected system even after try let it clean and a lot of money.
350 dollar for such a task is a rip-off.

Activated or not: the AV programm fails.

[Moonchild]

This is the only way to get back a secure system. Only remove the malware can't give a 100% clean system.

Nonsense!!

Removing malware can be just as easy as (and less time consuming than) restoring a backup and re-doing what you did since your last backup. You can get a perfectly 100% clean and secure (provided you prevent the way it was originally infected, of course ) system by properly removing the malware from it. If you think that's not possible, then you've obviously not done it properly.

There are some exceptions, of course, since some malware can be very insidious -- but those are the exception rather than the rule.

[half-moon]

i use norton. paid version. it really does a grand job blocking attacks. paid is better than free imho. i know of a few people who dont use an anti virus program.

Norton is a joke at best.

its no laughing matter when your pc gets infected with a dozen viruses and have to wait 3 days while the tech dept eradicated all of them..and was faced with a 350 dollar bill. -thats what happened to me in 2008. dumbfoundedly i had thought i had the 30 day free anti virus program installed, but forgot to activate it. norton blocks all incoming attacks. even seemingly innocent downloads of reputable programs..i wont say which ones.

Norton has many false positives and Norton probably does that HTTPS hijacking BS.

[Thehandyman1957]

This is the only way to get back a secure system. Only remove the malware can't give a 100% clean system.

Nonsense!!

Removing malware can be just as easy as (and less time consuming than) restoring a backup and re-doing what you did since your last backup. You can get a perfectly 100% clean and secure (provided you prevent the way it was originally infected, of course ) system by properly removing the malware from it. If you think that's not possible, then you've obviously not done it properly.

There are some exceptions, of course, since some malware can be very insidious -- but those are the exception rather than the rule.

I would say that most of the ones I have had to deal with are the insidious ones, as most folks won't call me till the thing simply won't work at all.

So by that point it is simply easier for me to wipe and start fresh, and most of the time cheaper for the customer than to sit half the day digging out what damage might have been done.

Did you see my question above about whether the man in the middle thing is put in even if basic no web stuff AV is installed?

[Falna]

Now the whole thing Moonchild was talking about.

With this kind of internet security (IS) setup "checking' your https traffic, they become a man in the middle (because encrypted traffic can't be inspected)

I'm wondering if it does that even at it's basic install?

Or do you have to install the web monitoring part?

That depends on the software; some packages install it by default, in others you have to enable it.

[Thehandyman1957]

Now the whole thing Moonchild was talking about.

With this kind of internet security (IS) setup "checking' your https traffic, they become a man in the middle (because encrypted traffic can't be inspected)

I'm wondering if it does that even at it's basic install?

Or do you have to install the web monitoring part?

That depends on the software; some packages install it by default, in others you have to enable it.

I guess I was thinking about Avast without actually saying it. Should have mentioned it.

[Thehandyman1957]

Well, it looks like I'm not the only one that feels the way I do about AV software.

Antivirus software is 'increasingly useless' and may make your computer less safe

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/antiv ... -1.3668746

[LimboSlam]

I don't no if anyone heard about this yet: http://www.computerworld.com/article/30 ... llion.html

[half-moon]

Well, it looks like I'm not the only one that feels the way I do about AV software.

Antivirus software is 'increasingly useless' and may make your computer less safe

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/antiv ... -1.3668746

Yeah, I've believed for quite some time now that antivirus software useless.

I don't no if anyone heard about this yet: http://www.computerworld.com/article/30 ... llion.html

Yeah I heard; It seems Avast is trying to eliminate some competition there by buying the competition.

[Thehandyman1957]

I don't no if anyone heard about this yet: http://www.computerworld.com/article/30 ... llion.html

Yup, I read about that one last week. I didn't want to post it because I figured I would wait to see if they were actually allowed to let it happen.

[Moonchild]

Hate to say it (maybe?) but I'm glad to see AVG with their aggressive marketing of mediocre software and take-overs of good software to then pull a Symantec on them go. 13 billion though? That's quite the unexpected amount of money.

[Daikun]

13 billion though? That's quite the unexpected amount of money.

You might want to divide that amount by 10.

[Tomaso]

Updated:
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=12148#p85464

--

EDIT1:
There's a small bug in avast! v2016.12.2.2276, which makes its main window pop up all by itself on some rare occasions.
Supposedly, they'll have a fix out by tomorrow:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic ... msg1327660

--

EDIT2:
Also, several users have reported that with v2016.12.2.2276, the background service doesn't even start!:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=189221.0/

--

EDIT3:
The problems are fixed now, but ONLY through the use of avast!'s Emergency Updater!
I've been trying to convince the developers to update the offline installers:
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic ... msg1328676
..but without any luck this far. :(

--

EDIT4:
avast! v2016.12.3.2279 has been released, and the issues have been resolved!
My 'Installation & Configuration Guide' is up-to-date (follow the link at the top of this post).

[John connor]

Just to throw my 2 cents into this topic. I use a combination of Bitdefender Free and VooDoo shield. VooDoo Shield will block anything from executing on your machine during a browse/E-mail session. This does not rely on definition-based anti-virus software. So it will catch zero-day crap like ransomware. But I think my use of NoScript and uBlock greatly helps me out in that arena. Some ADs are laced with malware.

There are other sanboxing-like programs such as Sandboxie and Anti executable. Great site with lots of security/privacy stuff. http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forums/o ... ftware.35/

[Thehandyman1957]

VooDoo Shield will block anything from executing on your machine during a browse/E-mail session. This does not rely on definition-based anti-virus software. So it will catch zero-day crap like ransomware.

I did some reading on VooDoo Shield, very interesting software. But for me this would not work so well as both my browser and email
program are running all the time. I take a much stronger approach with using Comodo Firewall and keeping the settings in high.

No software can run on my machine with me giving explicit permission at several levels. But I can see that VooDoo Shield has it's place.

I guess it depends on how much stuff you want to deal with. I prefer to have total control over these things than trust a program to do it for me.

[John connor]

VooDoo Shield will block anything from executing on your machine during a browse/E-mail session. This does not rely on definition-based anti-virus software. So it will catch zero-day crap like ransomware.

I did some reading on VooDoo Shield, very interesting software. But for me this would not work so well as both my browser and email
program are running all the time. I take a much stronger approach with using Comodo Firewall and keeping the settings in high.

No software can run on my machine with me giving explicit permission at several levels. But I can see that VooDoo Shield has it's place.

I guess it depends on how much stuff you want to deal with. I prefer to have total control over these things than trust a program to do it for me.

If I had to run an E-mail client and browser on continuously, I'd throw them in VMware Player.

Dork the whole thing out and install TeamViewer in VMware Player and access your VM with a smartphone or other computer when ever where ever.

I do this with my netbook that serves as a FTP server. The storge is on a SD card. Works well to toss files between my phone and computer using the AndFTP App.