"I don't need anti virus software", says user.

[Deer Slayer]

I hate most of them, more obnoxious than useful. I do scan at least once a week with panda active scan, and I do get the occasional virus. Most of them are easily taken care of and can be removed with little effort. I also have kerio firewall installed, unfortunately you can't get away without it nowadays. You'll definetly get hosed eventually without a firewall, all it takes is some little bunghole on a mission. I don't really care if my puter gets hosed, I have a ghost image stored. Most of the time viruses are the consequences of stupidity, and you usually know when you're going to get them. You don't learn anything about how the work if you never get them anyways.

[NightRhyme]

For all of you non-believers.
Made a AVG Scan for your pleasure.
It's been 3 months since my last format.

[3 of 7]

Originally Posted by NightRhyme

Hmm I don't use Anti Virus nor do I use Firewall.
Have no need for it. I use my common sense. I format quite often and run a online virus scan once in a while. Can't stand appz's idleing in the background using my precious memory :wave2:

You have a gig of memory, what are you saving it for?
BTW, If I'm in your address book....Please remove me

[Lucas_Maximus]

NightRhyme you are very lucky, have a scan for spyware and i bet you find a decent amount of that.

[NightRhyme]

Originally Posted by Lucas_Maximus

NightRhyme you are very lucky, have a scan for spyware and i bet you find a decent amount of that.

As you wish

[ronbo 613]

NightRhyme you are very lucky

As long as you don't make a mistake and no internet dirtbags worldwide target your system, you'll be fine.

[Aikonik]

I submitted my ip to the site by accident, lol...

[sandman55]

NightRhyme I would invite you to try the trial version of ZoneAlarm Pro to see the Access attempts that are blocked also you just have to be online to get some viri you have been lucky so far I hope you dont do any banking online or anything else of that nature. I got hacked once when I was on EBay I was having trouble getting a page to open and I knew it had to do with my firewall so I foolishly closed down my firewall a couple of times to get the page to open then when I logged into EBay the next time my firewall let me know if I wanted my EBay password to be sent out to someone

[Fraoch]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

actually it's not that foolish...I know a few people who don't use any antivirus...as long as you stay away from websites that are virus havens (porn, warez, peer to peer) and you are vigilant about hyperlinks and e-mail attachments then the chances of getting a virus are greatly reduced...Viruses usually do not spring up like magic and are mostly the result of user action of some kind so theoretically you can get away without using an antivirus..

I personally would not recommend that and consider Antivirus software a must have on all of my systems but I can somewhat understand the rationale behind not using it

I thought so too, and I do practice this, but lately I have been getting lots of Netsky worms e-mailed to me from business contacts. My AV found and deleted them.

Most of these I never would have clicked on anyway, but there was one a few days ago that was a very well-crafted MAILER DAEMON spoof. It contained a .zip attachment. I might very well have clicked on that. The only indication to me that something was wrong was that I did not remember e-mailing that address. In fact, my computer was turned off at the time! But had it been a common address domain, or had I been using my computer that day they might've got me.

[traveler]

I have no Apple computer experience. I just spoke to someone I haven't seen in ages. He just got a Mac computer and told me Apple computers never get viruses. I asked how he knew that and he said someone who has a Mac said that to him.

So, do Apple computers get viruses?



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[polonyc2]

Originally Posted by traveler

I have no Apple computer experience. I just spoke to someone I haven't seen in ages. He just got a Mac computer and told me Apple computers never get viruses. I asked how he knew that and he said someone who has a Mac said that to him.

So, do Apple computers get viruses?

Macs rarely get viruses but there were 1 or 2 viruses reported this past year which got national attention....but comparing PC's to Macs, it is not even close

there's always the possibility of a nasty OS X virus someday--that's why Apple includes Virex with their .Mac accounts, and that's why the company issues the occasional security update. OS X is not 100% immune to nasty problems (as anyone who lost their hard drive during the iTunes 2 debacle can tell you). No operating system is.

Apple has had the occasional security issue update for OS X, but a security issue isn't the same thing as a virus--it's a potential, theoretical threat.

as to why Macs don't get nearly as many viruses, the answer is probably the same as why FireFox does not get as many exploits as Internet Explorer....if Macs had 90% of the market, they'd have just as many virus problems as Windows does

[wallijonn]

Probably as often as Linux users get viruses, trojans and worms.

I would think that they, "we", still get tracking cookies, though.

[Finalheaven]

I have AVG, but I do not have it running in the background. As was mentioned before, I don't go to precarious websites, no peer to peer, I don't download email attachments or go to links from emails. I am the only person who uses my computer. I do try and keep a good software and hardware firewall running, with unnecessary ports closed and will soon mod my HOST files (thanks pcbruiser lol).

Other than that, I just run AVG every once and awhile in case, for SOME reason, I got a virus or something.

Nothing yet.

[surfandcross]

what is the cool thing of not having a antivirus running ?? AV does not take that "BIG" amonut of your computer resources.... so why not use it ?? anyway my AV is running on my pc's and i make sure i click on the update button 3 to 4 times a day...just in case

[proFeign]

Man oh man, I have to throw in my two cents here...


It's a terrible idea to not have AV software installed. With AVG free and the other free ones there's no financial reason to not install one.

For all of the reasons PC Bruiser said, plus this is my take.

Formatting one's HDD whenever something weird happens seems like an absolute waste of time. I'm of the better safe than sorry mindset, but if you get e-mail at all it's absolutely foolish to not have AV. The only virus warnings I get are from unsolicited e-mails that come in spite of my best efforts and AVG cleans them before I even know they're in my inbox. There aren't a lot of them, but viruses are getting nastier (as PCB said) and depending on what's going on you may be susceptible to infection whether or not you even open the mail, let alone the attachment, from what I've read.

Also you have no control over who ends up with your e-mail address, especially if you have an infected buddy that even knows your address.

I'd like to be a little further than "one careless click" away from inundating my address book with vSpam, if not doing something far worse. To me, no AV is like having a big button that takes up a quarter of my desktop that says "format c:" that does just that with "one careless click."

Also, what kind of example would we be setting for people who aren't on our level of user sophistication who wouldn't be able to tell the difference between "babypictures.jpg" and "babypictures.jpg.bat" when they get sent to them from one of your no av-using compatriots' "spam zombies?"


I hope I'm not in your address books either