How often do you run your anti virus?

jamespir

antivirus softare really gets my goat my pc is conneted to the net nearly everyday and i download things and i have never had a virus i use spybot to get rid of any unwanted spyware and junk which i run evry other day just to make sure. but as for antivirus did you know microsoft placed thousands of virus in there coding of vista so that people would rush out and spend 100s of pounds on ther anti virus software its a big con

superscaper

jamespir wrote: »

but as for antivirus did you know microsoft placed thousands of virus in there coding of vista so that people would rush out and spend 100s of pounds on ther anti virus software its a big con

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Yep, and we never went to the moon and JFK was assassinated by ninjas and the WTC was destroyed by aliens.

(Aside from the fact that my entire security suite costs me about £20 per year, not "100s of pounds" or that there are free alternatives, exactly how many people picked up viruses from a fresh install of Vista? :rolleyes:)

TiTheRev

superscaper wrote: »

I found one of the most impressive things about it was the firewall. Completely unobtrusive. Tiny footprint and doesn't continually nag you every time you install something etc.

Exactly, just a little note at the bottom of the screen...Version XXX now installed.

Marty_J

jamespir wrote: »

but as for antivirus did you know microsoft placed thousands of virus in there coding of vista so that people would rush out and spend 100s of pounds on ther anti virus software its a big con

My, that's a rather fetching tinfoil hat you have on there.

Leopard

There's a new anti-virus tool for Macs - currently in beta, and free.

Runs continuously, in the background, and updates itself automatically

d900

run mine about once in a blue moon
anything nasty will get picked up by a real time scan
avoid silly websites and clicking silly emails

Marty_J

Leopard wrote: »

There's a new anti-virus tool for Macs - currently in beta, and free.

Runs continuously, in the background, and updates itself automatically

Thanks for that....interesting stuff.

Have you used it yourself? If so, how did it impact on performance? Did it find anything when you scanned?

I can understand only maintaining a Mac-specific database, but one of the main reasons for running an anti-virus on your Mac is so you don't send viruses to Windows users. This app looks like it will be pretty useless for that task. Still, I guess you could use ClamAV on-demand if you need to.

Leopard

I'm experimenting with it cautiously (not least because it's still in beta) by running it from a bootable external (Firewire 800) drive.

Hitherto, I've been using "Virus Barrier", so there was nothing nasty for it to find, initially. My Intel Macs have a lot of grunt and plenty of RAM, so I've not seen any impact on performance, as yet, either.

I'm afraid one of the main reasons for running anti-virus software on my Macs is not so that I don't pass on Windows viruses to Windows users. If they choose to use Windows, and all that goes with it, I regard it as being their (and Microsoft's) problem.

(Perhaps not a very charitable attitude but at least I'm honest about it. :cool: )

Basically, above, I was just passing on the fact that "iAntiVirus" now exists.

Marty_J

Leopard wrote: »

I'm experimenting with it cautiously (not least because it's still in beta) by running it from a bootable external (Firewire 800) drive.

Hitherto, I've been using "Virus Barrier", so there was nothing nasty for it to find, initially. My Intel Macs have a lot of grunt and plenty of RAM, so I've not seen any impact on performance, as yet, either.

I just remember from my Windows days how awful Norton was (and McAfee for that matter). It made the computer run slower and caused as many problems as some viruses would.

I'm afraid one of the main reasons for running anti-virus software on my Macs is not so that I don't pass on Windows viruses to Windows users. If they choose to use Windows, and all that goes with it, I regard it as being their (and Microsoft's) problem.

(Perhaps not a very charitable attitude but at least I'm honest about it. :cool: )

Ah, but if one of my friends or family gets a virus, I'm the one who's going to get a phonecall asking me to fix their computer!

Basically, above, I was just passing on the fact that "iAntiVirus" now exists.

Well thanks for the heads up!

peter_the_piper

Just a thought but have you noticed that the amount of spam etc goes down at the weekends? Does this therefore mean that more commercial computers are drones than domestic? Should the commercial sector do more?