Anti Virus for Laptop and Phone

wunferall

Oh, a few admirers of Windows Defender huh? Look, it's just about fine for a spot of light surfing at a push and I'm not rubbishing it because it has it's place, but really?
And those statements are again misleading.

AndyPix wrote: »

And any way that you flavour it, defender still detects 99.9% of infections thrown at it, along with 98.8% of zero day attacks.

No.
Really it does not although I admit it is still improving. This from mid-October:

Poor score in our hands-on malware blocking test. So-so score in our malicious URL blocking test.

http://uk.pcmag.com/windows-defender-beta-2/25697/review/microsoft-windows-defender-security-center

Security experts at AV-Test Institute rate antivirus programs on three criteria, Protection, Performance, and Usability. The antivirus can earn up to six points for each of these. For certification, a product needs a total of 10 points and no zeroes. Windows Defender got 5.0 points for Protection, 4.5 points for Performance, and 4.0 points for Usability, a total of 13.5 points. That's a passing grade, but not a high one. Kaspersky rated a perfect 18 points. Among free products, Avast, AVG AntiVirus Free, and Avira earned 16.0, 16.5, and 17.0 points respectively.

This too:

AndyPix wrote: »

Windows defender is fine. And best of all it doesnt slow down your computer, doesnt start getting involved in all your activities just to advertise its-self like

Oh dear. Even a very brief web search shows how untrue that is! Don't take my word for it though, look at Microsoft's own community site here:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_defender-protect_start-windows_10/

But hey, if you want to rely upon so-so antivirus that potentially puts your computer at risk go ahead. It's your computer. Me, I prefer to minimise risk as far as practicable. No antivirus etc. will provide 100% protection and none can infallibly guard against user error which is where most horror stories originate.
Oh and by the way, those "flashy adverts", "pop-ups" and "other crap, browser extentions, registry cleaners etc.", IF the chosen free antivirus even has them can most frequently be disabled or removed altogether.

AndyPix

I wont start a daft debate with you, you are entitled to your opinion.
Its just a shame you dont educate yourself properly instead of trusting reviews from wesites like pcmag.


Like I said, i could produce "reviews" that state the oposite of what you say, but i wont.
I will simply state my own personal and business experience spanning 25 years in IT consultancy and penetration testing.
To put it simply, i am one of the guys that these programs are designed to keep out.


I will leave that there.


I dont need a search of the web to tell me that defender works silently in the background as i live that scenario every day.
If you would prefer an AV that comes equipped with huge amount of useless bloaty "features" then you are entitled to install one.
If you want to pay for AV then be my guest
If an AV that hasd components that live in your toolbar, in your email client, adds all kinds of menus to right click options everywhere then more power to you, go right ahead.


I want a solution that works and is slick and quiet.
Its nice that it is designed by the actual creators of the operating system too.
Windows isnt open source.


For my machine, and everyone who asks my advice on the subject, its defender and malwarebytes and I have yet had one single person come back and report they have a virus.


This isnt lab conditions, testing obscure exploits and comparing 0.01% detection rates
This is real life.


But i guess there are always people who want the loud shiny version of everything
They are catered for at Avast et al..


I have had infinitely more people come looking for help like i said with a virus ridden machine AND a f**cked install of one of the formentioned solutions, than i have seen machines running defender that have become infected.


Again, that is REAL WORLD experience - NOT what i have read on a magazine website


Given your views and your belief in what you read, perhaps you would like to "boost your registrys performance" (chuckle)
Well here is an article for you to believe


http://www.winzipregistryoptimizer.com/ro/wpc2/index.php?lang=en&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt9_llPTU1wIV4bftCh0ePQdTEAAYAyAAEgJBXvD_BwE


Everyone else - just dont

esuhl

Personally, for the past few years, I've found Avira Antivirus to be the best (free) protection for PCs.

If you want to install it, I'd recommend doing a custom installation and only selecting the "shields", the "software updater" and "rescue disc" components. It's still bloated, but (in my experience) it's been very effective.

However (like all other antiviruses I've tried), it's become incredibly bloated, and was causing performance issues. I tried the free trial of MalwareBytes Premium and was really impressed. It claims to be an "antivirus replacement" -- instead of scanning your local files on access or in the background, it only examines files entering your machine.

I hardly ever buy software (except for Windows and Office), but I'd say it was worth the subscription fee.

Oh... hang on... It was £30 a year when I got it. Now it's £50?! Damn. Not sure it's worth that much. :-/

https://www.malwarebytes.com/

Another excellent (free) program is SpywareBlaster, which just blocks known malicious sites in your web browser(s). It works alongside other security software.

https://www.brightfort.com/spywareblaster.html

Also, if you use an adblocker in your browser, there are usually anti-malware blacklists you can subscribe to.

(And yeah -- you don't need an antivirus on a mobile phone.)

System

wunferall wrote: »

I do realise that it's a kinda "horses for courses" thing but I think that suggesting people rely upon Microsoft's own antivirus is very poor advice.
That's not just my opinion but that of Toms Guide, UK PC Mag and Techradar to name just a few. Reasons include poor detection rates, lots of false positives and a very high system impact during scans.
In recent tests (October/November this year) Techradar has Bitdefender Free as #1 and Avast Free as #2 whilst Toms Guide has the top two the other way around, with Avast #1.
Personally I found that Bitdefender Free didn't like Opera VPN.

I've had PCs since 1988. For many years I never ran any anti-virus at all. I only did when Windows Security Essentials came into being. In three decades of using a PC I have only ever had a virus once - the FORM virus which I had a PC infected with in 1995 due to an infected menu application on the one and only warez CD I've ever used that infected my PC.

One infection in 30 years and from a dodgy disc. The major mass malware infections there have been over the decades would not have been stopped by anti-virus software. The one that crippled the NHS was an exploit of the SMB protocol, anti-virus didn't stop that. In the Windows XP days there was a widespread one which as soon as you started your computer would instantly start a shutdown timer. Again anti-virus didn't stop that. In both cases there was one common factor amongst all the computers that didn't suffer - they were running the latest updates of Windows.

So in short keeping your computer updated which also includes your browser if you're using a third party one like Chrome or Firefox, getting your software and even things like images and media files from safe sources (JPGs and MPG files have been used as a way to infect a PC in the past) and common sense keeps you pretty much covered. The free Windows Defender/MSE just gives peace of mind.

Kunoichi73

At the risk of seeming stupid, why is it that you don't need an antivirus on an android phone? Thank you all in advance.

AndyPix

^^ It isnt stupid atall.
The AV companies have groomed you to think in this way, along with the staff at various outlets that get a commision for pushing it on you ..


There are so many answers to your question, lots of those have been battered to death on this forum in other threads ..


But you are asking the wrong question


The question you should be asking, is why DO you need an AV on an android phone !!
To that there are no answers

AndyPix

Tarambor wrote: »

I've had PCs since 1988. For many years I never ran any anti-virus at all. I only did when Windows Security Essentials came into being. In three decades of using a PC I have only ever had a virus once - the FORM virus which I had a PC infected with in 1995 due to an infected menu application on the one and only warez CD I've ever used that infected my PC.

One infection in 30 years and from a dodgy disc. The major mass malware infections there have been over the decades would not have been stopped by anti-virus software. The one that crippled the NHS was an exploit of the SMB protocol, anti-virus didn't stop that. In the Windows XP days there was a widespread one which as soon as you started your computer would instantly start a shutdown timer. Again anti-virus didn't stop that. In both cases there was one common factor amongst all the computers that didn't suffer - they were running the latest updates of Windows.

So in short keeping your computer updated which also includes your browser if you're using a third party one like Chrome or Firefox, getting your software and even things like images and media files from safe sources (JPGs and MPG files have been used as a way to infect a PC in the past) and common sense keeps you pretty much covered. The free Windows Defender/MSE just gives peace of mind.

:T


Here here

Frozen_up_north

I totally agree with AndyPix about AV products. A friend who is a professional programmer in the PC industry doesn’t use 3rd party AV and says to use the Microsoft built-in one and to make sure that Windows (10) is kept up to date, there has been a lot of hardening in recent versions of Windows.

Be careful with Malwarebytes, the free version isn’t proactive, only the paid for version runs constantly in the background.

I personally use Windows 10 Creators Edition with it’s built in AV, plus Malwarebytes Premium.

wongataa

Kunoichi73 wrote: »

At the risk of seeming stupid, why is it that you don't need an antivirus on an android phone? Thank you all in advance.

Because of the way Android (and iOS) work anti-virus software cannot do what it is supposed to do. By design those operating systems do not let apps root around system files which makes it impossible for an antivirus app to remove viruses, which are very hard to get on mobile phones anyway. There is some Android malware out there but they won't really stop that either.