Norton - I didn't believe it

superscaper

I think mascherano would have people believe that albertross and I and many others are involved in some kind of vast conspiracy. I can think of no other reason why he continues to ignore our personal experiences.

mascherano

superscaper wrote: »

I think mascherano would have people believe that albertross and I and many others are involved in some kind of vast conspiracy. I can think of no other reason why he continues to ignore our personal experiences.

I dont ignore your personal experiences, I just give more weight to mine. I am not far off an idiot, I use dodgy p2p sites daily, I download/stream from russia china everywhere and I havent had a virus yet. I cant for the life of me think how anyone can get a virus. Ive seen the damage viruses can do, at work our system has been hit a few times and gone down- but that was due to morons using the computers (not me I hasten to add). My computers at home are too crap and slow to use AV apps, and if they do get infected I'm not bothered about throwing them on a skip.

superscaper

mascherano wrote: »

I dont ignore your personal experiences, I just give more weight to mine. I am not far off an idiot, I use dodgy p2p sites daily, I download/stream from russia china everywhere and I havent had a virus yet. I cant for the life of me think how anyone can get a virus. Ive seen the damage viruses can do, at work our system has been hit a few times and gone down- but that was due to morons using the computers (not me I hasten to add). My computers at home are too crap and slow to use AV apps, and if they do get infected I'm not bothered about throwing them on a skip.

Maybe you've been extremely lucky, as I've said in my experience I've actually seen my system get infected when it wasn't protected without my active participation. Some worms can self install as well as self propogate. They exist. Of course it could just be the pixies at the bottom of my garden behind it all

cajef

mascherano wrote: »

ok so you have swallowed the virus myth completely havent you?

No I have not and do not insult peoples intelligence, as I said before if you chose to believe that you can stop anything infecting your computer without any AV protection that is your perogative, but the majority of computer users just want there equipment to work and have no idea what to look for or how viruses attack computers, to tell people like them that they do not need any AV software is purely and simply stupid advice.

I would rather have my computer running at 80% efficiency that risk getting infected with some of the pretty nasty viruses, worms, trojans, keyloggers, spyware etc. that are in the wild out there.

If you wish to bury your head in the sand that is your choice, as others in this thread who are far more knowledgeable than me have said, AV protection is a must for the average user.

mascherano

cajef wrote: »

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If you wish to bury your head in the sand that is your choice, as others in this thread who are far more knowledgeable than me have said, AV protection is a must for the average user.

And people far more knowledgeable than me have alerted others to the fact that antivirus software is sometimes superfluous and not worth the degradation of operating speed. I'm not the only one going on about this you know

albertross_2

You won't find many IT professionals with that view, the only person I have ever seen say it is Steve Gibson, and I suspect an element of bravado/hype/marketing in his statement.

If you have one PC, isolated, imaged, with nothing of importance on, then there this is an argument for ditching security products, but if you have any personal details on it, or use it for email, then you are not only putting yourself at risk, but all those who you communicate with.

Perhaps MSE towers should consider installing antitroll, to protect us all?

budget_counsellor_shaz

We've used Norton for many years and we are quite happy with it. It has protected me from opening links sent to me by honest looking emails.

Shaz

superscaper

budget_counsellor_shaz wrote: »

We've used Norton for many years and we are quite happy with it. It has protected me from opening links sent to me by honest looking emails.

Shaz

Have you actually tried anything else? Norton doesn't actually do all that well in detection tests even compared to free antivirus apps. As for the "links" you mentioned I'm not sure what you mean by protected. Outlook automatically disables links unless you tell it the sender is safe. If you are talking about phishing scams, Internet Explorer has an inbuilt phishing filter already and common sense should tell you not to click on those.

I remember deciding to uninstall Norton from my dad's computer a while ago and I found the pc riddled with viruses when I put proper antivirus software on it. If you only ever drive a Vauxhall Corsa and never experienced driving another car, does that mean it isn't worth changing for a better one? Even if you're offered a Mercedes for free?

One of the golden rules of this site is trying not to fall into the trap of brand/company loyalty.