Do you need an anti-virus?
Why? "lol no" isn't really helpful. To be honest, it isn't helpful at all :P
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Wasn't trying to be helpful but since you asked... fist of all you don't need antivirus software if you are able to correctly set up your firewall and you don't pick up every shit you find on the internet... the "lol" for the avast is that avast is exact definition of a virus... I installed it on my parents computers because they are the types who install every shit they found but I found out it's worse than a virus. It spams the PC with advertisments (adware behaviour), it couldn't be properly and fully turned off and it deleted some files even though I specifically told it not to (mallware behaviour) and it also scanned processes and activities of the user (spyware behaviour). The fact the Avast is now available for Android devices even tough there's no viruses on that platform leads me to believe that this software is just piece of junk made for people who don't know a single thing about IT (no offense).
If your surfing behaviours make you vulnerable to malicious software and you really need some software protection, combination of MallWareBytes, Spybot and solid firewall will suffice.
Wild article appears.
http://www.howtogeek.com/199829/avast-antivirus-was-spying-on-you-with-adware-until-this-week/
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fist of all you don't need antivirus software if you are able to correctly set up your firewall and you don't pick up every shit you find on the internet...
java ;)
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Wait...Android doesn't have viruses? Good to know. Thanks for Your comment, it was helpful :)
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Practically - yes, it does not have viruses. Not in the form we know them on them on PC. Virus is basically a malicious software that is able to spread and replicate itself. That's currently impossible on Android. You CAN encounter a malware on Android, but you need to actually give it a permission to harm you because when you install any application on Android, OS tells you what permission it needs and you need to approve. Unless you actually give an application some power over your device, it can't do anything on it's own. So practically you can't get your phone infected without knowing and actually allowing it. I'm not saying there's no danger, but unless you install from .apk provided from untrustworthy source and then allow to do what it asks you to do, you won't get your device infected. So antivirus software is pretty much useless. As long as you use apps only from Play Store, you don't need to worry.
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fist of all you don't need antivirus software if you are able to correctly set up your firewall and you don't pick up every shit you find on the internet..
1.) By correctly set up your firewall, you are infact saying to set up a whitelist. Window's firewall is complete trash for this, and you would have to download an independant firewall for it to be effectual.
2.) You and people like you continue to spread the FALSE believe that, "Hur dur I am so smart so I wont be infected if I only download files that I trust." This is false. To start, even trusted files can become infected at the source or exploited. Java and flash at the very least show this, but you also have things like Uturrent installing rouge software just to name very recent events. Then there are pesky things like, drive by downloades, that can initiate and RUN an install remotely simply visiting a compromised server. And no, you dont have to be into hardcore porn or trying to find deepweb BS to run across a compromised server.
The fact the Avast is now available for Android devices even tough there's no viruses on that platform.
Android, and Apple devices both have viruses and exploits available ranging from simply adware that replaces the ads that your apps would have served you, to programs that will siphon all of your data such as contacts/pictures/spreadsheets w/e.
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I find it astounding how you state "you don't need antivirus software" yadda yadda, then go on to admit you're unable to set up a simple antivirus.
"avast is exact definition of a virus"
"It spams the PC with advertisments" - It's a free software with a trial period, most software nags you to upgrade once the trial is done. All of this is easily disabled.
"it couldn't be properly and fully turned off" - I'm not sure what you mean. I can temp disable it or easily fully terminate it.
"it deleted some files even though" - Let me guess, it was being extracted from a compressed file, you put exclude on it, tried again and it happened again?
"scanned processes and activities of the user" - Proactive protection? Should it only scan once you're infected and it's too late?
Almost every AV also has an android version so that point is moot as well. Your article also only includes a web extension that is not mandatory in avast. I have used it for years and never once seen what the article is referring to.
Ever heard of PEBKAC? I think it applies here.
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One reply is an argument nowadays?
Ops, I guess now we're arguing as well. Sorry!
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Not particularly replying to just you m8. Your reply is in the same spirit as mine actually, I'm just not wasting my time attempting to logically inform them of the realities.
I meant the entire dialogue, as it's incredibly hilarious how ignorant most people are and how steadfast they attempt to protect their wrong regurgitation.
Stay frosty.
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My apologies then! I haven't read the other replies so I was unaware that you were involved. Just saw the reply pop up to my post and obviously thought it was directed at me.
Cheers though!
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LEL, avast is know for flaging steam and steam games as virus...thats how good avast is....
NOD32 and malwarebytes master race.
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No, not true for me. I've used Avast for like 6 or more years and everything has been fine. Also, please don't refer Malwarebytes as an anti-virus software. It's anti-malware software and that's completely different thing.
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I have to agree with avast I have had no problems with avast with false positives and such
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To be fair, he didn't refer to MWB as an anti-virus program. That was all you. MWB is a "sweeper," not an AV.
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Avast is nice, I use it as well but it has false positives as well, 2 or 3 times it deleted steam.exe XD
Plus I love the software update reminder, quite useful :3
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I hate that feature. Also, I probably haven't updated my Antivirus for 3 months :P
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That doesn't mean it didn't happen :P
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most viral software think most games and gaming related stuff are viruses.
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internetz are a dangerous place, you nead to protect urself
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antivirus are breaking some mods for me, so I dont use 'em. And if you don't click on every link you see you should be fine
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I only use Windows Defender and never been infected by virus. The best anti virus is yourself!
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I think he might mean MS essentials, which has since replaced windows defender. MSE has ranked quite high recently against AVs like Kaspersky and malwarebytes. The only thing missing is a firewall or packet scanning, but MSE is quite effectual now.
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How can you be sure? It's possible that you have something in your system that is just not showing itself.
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Things can be hidden, and set to only do dirt when you're not at the machine. Hope you scan with more than just Windows Defender -- and at least you keep the Defender definitions up-to-date. :D
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+1 for 'The best anti virus is yourself!' because you can have the best antivirus and still get infected if you are not careful.
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Same here. I also use malware bytes every week as well.
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The best antivirus is yourself combined with an actual antivirus because no matter how smart you think you are there's always a chance that the website you are visiting got hacked or any other number of ways to get infected that you can't avoid just by being careful. One of the only times I got a serious virus was from someone finding a way to sneak malicious code into a trustworthy wiki.
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Actually, I had a problem with malware 2 days ago. So yeah, use protection.
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I'm Sorry, but i have to correct you: It doesnt brick ( =permanently unusable) the pc.
After a clean install everything works fine again,but Windows is still the worst virus ;)
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At least someone here keeps up to date. Thank you for giving me hope that not everyone is willfully ignoring the facts. :D
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It's still the most targeted OS for viruses for the simple reason that it has the largest market share. You're only ever going to infect a small percentage of a platform's users so might as well target the largest demographic group.
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Of course, abundance of skids and scripts flood the populace due to the market share. Even then, as vulns are published most people don't even properly update and that's where most of the profit is made -- I know quite a few banking on file-encryption ransomware. Even today, you can still scan & find XP boxes vuln to RPC / DCOM exploits. xD
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Saw that yesterday and I think that's pretty funny. Well, now I use Linux, but back when I had Windows my choice was always BitDefender.
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Yep you're right. I know that, but that was my prefered. Any software can have problems, but in the end they fix them, or at least they try.
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BItDefender was, by far, the worst Antivirus I ever had the displeasure of using. False positives galore, random crashes, deleting important email messages even after the email scanner was turned off. It also deleted my browser's home page whenever it detected anything he thought was a virus and wouldn't even let me set it back until I rebooted. (An issue that had been mentioned in their forum 2 years before and they kept promising it would be fixed in the "next" release.) I paid $0.10 for it and still feel like I was ripped off.
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I got it free and I used it for like one year and a half or so, but I didn't had any problem.
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I agree. I loved how lightweight and the design of it. But I kept it for around 2 weeks, I couldn't take it. It sucked too much. The same issues that you had, happened to me. And on top of that it has something called "auto-pilot", that's pretty much the active security scan; but the issue is it kept of turning off by itself, leaving my PC at risk. So I agree Bitdefender sucks.
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So you limit yourself to one kernel -- not seeming to understand distribution? 100% derp.
Never understood fanboism cuz I get paid to fix them all! :D
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Such a clickbaity title for a news article. Whoever wrote it has no idea what bricking means. The problem would be easily fixable without even doing a fresh install. Just doing a system restore will most likely fix it.
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There is one thing that I firmly belive in.
You see as long as you have something called common sense then a simple security program like MSE will provide you with enough.
The peolpe who don't have common sense are the people who go ahead and buy these fancy anti-viruses.
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ZDNet has fallen. They have writers that don't even know what "brick" means.
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I use Avast, and it has never failed me. Ever. It only once gave me a false positive, and it was for Star Citizen several months ago, since it was still relatively new. Now I have no issues at all and no false positives.
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+1
Sadly most of those people are children with no frame of reference either.
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Regardless of what anti-virus, and whatnot you think is best, I think it's safe to say that we all think the idea of an anti-virus flagging itself as a virus is pretty hilarious, unless you happen to be dealing with the issue yourself.
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Just like BitDefender once did to me.
Avira (formerly AntiVir Classic) ftw.
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Apparently it flags itself as a virus, leaving your PCs bricked. Although to be fair all anti-virus are prone to false positives...
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