do we realy need expensive AV software

[martyh]

The internet isn’t such a scary place, says Which? Computing, and your computer is a lot safer than you think.

The consumer watchdog connected five computers to the internet for four weeks* and not one of them became infected, despite an estimated 60,000 new malware threats occurring daily.**

The PCs weren’t overloaded with security software either. In fact, one was such an easy target for would-be attackers it was practically saying ‘come and get me’.

what do others think? are we being scared into buying unnecessary expensive AV software .I for one only use VM's software and prior to that i used MSE ,prior to that i was sucked in by Nortons "don't even switch your computer on without our software" approach


http://www.which.co.uk/about-which/p...an-many-think/

[Rob]

If you simply connect a computer then you probably aren't at significant risk. Someone would have to hunt you out.

The real risks come from the user. It's what they download or open. Visit an unsavoury wbesite, or worse, open that spam email attachment and who knows.

Our company gets bombarded with up to 2000 spam / virus emails a day for only 20 users. The filters get rid of most of it. but still some gets through. A/V on the computers provides the final level of protection to the gateway filters.

At home, for just me, the protection can be lower and the free antivirus of the likes of avast is sufficient. But then I am not protecting a mission critical computer. I still run antispyware and such like scans periodically to be sure.

So most of the security software does rely on a level of paranoia. But when it only takes one small mouse click to go wrong, the majority will consider some protection a worthwhile investment, even if managing that security software creates a new level of nightmare.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by martyh

what do others think? are we being scared into buying unnecessary expensive AV software .I for one only use VM's software and prior to that i used MSE ,prior to that i was sucked in by Nortons "don't even switch your computer on without our software" approach


http://www.which.co.uk/about-which/p...an-many-think/

As home users, we don't necessarily need expensive AV software. There is a large industry devoted to telling us we do, but I just have free AV at home, and I have caught a virus once in the last 10 years.

[Paul M]

You dont need expensive software, there are plenty of free or cheap ones about.

[Stuart]

We actually use McAfee at work. But we manage a large network of computers 95% of which run Windows. While I personally would be happy to use a free product at work as well, we have to be able to ensure that if something goes wrong that the company will be both willing and able to provide the level of support needed. This pretty much rules out any free product.

[martyh]

What about the conspiracies that abound that the big AV companies develop and release new viruses to feed the paranoia and thus keep the revenue coming in ,is that likely or just paranoia ?

[Horace]

dropmyrights + comodo pfw + anivir = no av. AV software is pretty useless to me. Most new malware is configured to avoid triggering AV anyway, so AV's don't catch most 0-day releases which is when infection is most likely to occur. Modifying security policies to restrict where software can be launched from locks things down even further but none of these are newbie friendly so AV is useful for some, even if it only catches ancient drive-by viruses on porn sites.

[martyh]

Originally Posted by Horace

dropmyrights + comodo pfw + anivir = no av. AV software is pretty useless to me. Most new malware is configured to avoid triggering AV anyway, so AV's don't catch most 0-day releases which is when infection is most likely to occur. Modifying security policies to restrict where software can be launched from locks things down even further but none of these are newbie friendly so AV is useful for some, even if it only catches ancient drive-by viruses on porn sites.

and most free software can do that

[Boethius]

Originally Posted by Rob

The real risks come from the user. It's what they download or open. Visit an unsavoury wbesite,

Yep, spyware is a significant threat in itself and if you get enough it'll just make your online experience unbearably slow with pop ups and commandeered processing power as the cause. It's worth having anti-virus software just to block some of that but it's true it is quite hard to get a virus. Again if you haven't got anti-virus software you might not know if you do get one though but does it need to be expensive, not for general use. Use a free anti-virus product.

[mart44]

It doesn't seem a very good test if all the computers were doing was sitting there connected to the Internet. If they had been used to visit many and various types of site over the 4 week period, there might have been a different result and conclusion.

There's always been a debate regarding free and paid security programs. I don't think any can be absolutely relied on. They can all get false positives and occasionally might fail to detect malware. Paid programs can have features that people consider worth paying for and others consider 'bloat'. It just depends on your point of view and preferences.

I read of some who are turning completely away from programs that rely on detections in favour of programs that work solely by blocking or preventing malware from taking a foothold in the first place. If that's successful, malware doesn't get as far as needing detection by a scanner of one sort or another. I do that with Sandboxie but wouldn't personally go so far as dispensing with an AV program that monitors and scans for malware.

I'd say to always have something in place whatever, unless the computer is just connected to the Internet and nothing else is done with it. It will most likely be OK then.

What about the conspiracies that abound that the big AV companies develop and release new viruses to feed the paranoia and thus keep the revenue coming in ,is that likely or just paranoia ?

I don't believe AV companies do this.

[Matty_]

Originally Posted by martyh

What about the conspiracies that abound that the big AV companies develop and release new viruses to feed the paranoia and thus keep the revenue coming in ,is that likely or just paranoia ?

This has actually happened quite recently http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/47371/ but is completely against the norm. AV makers have enough malware to deal with without making their own.
Here`s a recent report on AV usage done by Oesis so probably more corporation inclinedhttp://www.oesisok.com/news-resource...ows-os-reports . It seems the trend of moving towards free offerings is really growing and Symantec and others scare tactics are not working...

Using free software such as Sandboxie, Comodo, Avast, Avira, MBAM, SAS, etc, etc, can keep you safe. Normally it`s the end user who ends up getting themselves infected......PEBKAC

[tosh mate]

Originally Posted by Matty_

This has actually happened quite recently http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/47371/ but is completely against the norm. AV makers have enough malware to deal with without making their own.
Here`s a recent report on AV usage done by Oesis so probably more corporation inclinedhttp://www.oesisok.com/news-resource...ows-os-reports . It seems the trend of moving towards free offerings is really growing and Symantec and others scare tactics are not working...

Using free software such as Sandboxie, Comodo, Avast, Avira, MBAM, SAS, etc, etc, can keep you safe. Normally it`s the end user who ends up getting themselves infected......PEBKAC

i agree Matty free software can be as good as paid for software and the list You mentioned are all good, i used to use AVG antivirus alongside Zonealarm firewall, both been the free version's, but recently changed to using Avast

[Matth]

Way, WAY back, was the bad old time when you'd be infected by the time you downloaded the updates (if you exposed WinXP with no patches), and going through a router stops that one.

So yes, the question of their "test" very much depends on what they were doing.

Some places online, you are very likely to bump into malware, while others, very unlikely.

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by Rob

The real risks come from the user. It's what they download or open. Visit an unsavoury wbesite, or worse, open that spam email attachment and who knows.

You couldnt be more accurate Rob!

The end user IS THE BEST AV OUT THERE!

[snowey]

Originally Posted by Dude111

You couldnt be more accurate Rob!

The end user IS THE BEST AV OUT THERE!

I agree/ but will still use MSE, JUST TO BE SAFE...