Ask Slashdot: Actual Best-in-Show For Free Anti Virus? 515
First time accepted submitter paperclipman writes "I'm on the college student budget and want to make sure that my recent investment in an Acer laptop will last me a good long while. I like to think of myself as a reasonably competent CPU user so I'm no adventurous link-clicker, but I do download some music as a recent SoundCloud devotee. My Kaspersky antivirus will be expiring shortly and I don't particularly care to renew with that steep of a fee — any advice from fellow thrifts?"
Simple (Score:5, Informative)
Windows: Microsoft Security Essentials, free if you have Microsoft Windows XP or higher, and it does work especially for the technical, not too adventerous link clicker. Gives you that extra layer of protection you seem to want for those 'oh shit' moments.
Re:Simple (Score:5, Informative)
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They were sued out for internet explorer because they were using anti-competitive practices to stifle the entire internet ecosystem. MSE is only for Windows and can only be for Windows so Microsoft making it might as well have it considered a part of the OS since it is only there to solve the problem of bad user privileges that have plagued Windows for 20 years.
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1. Antivirus should be part of the operating system. It is a critical aspect of a stable system.
2. Nobody cares about Microsoft anymore, they are loosing so much market share to Apple etc. Microsoft have good grounds to say 'not a monopoly'
3. Antivirus is an industry that has peaked - not a growing, sexy industry like the dotcom was.
4. (Conspiracy warning) Prior to viruses having economic benefit in themselves as botnets and
Re:Simple (Score:5, Informative)
Not only is it a reasonably good anti-malware tool, its the least intrusive one I've ever used, both as far as annoying popups and abusing system resources. My first download on any new Windows install.
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Not only is it a reasonably good anti-malware tool, its the least intrusive one I've ever used, both as far as annoying popups and abusing system resources. My first download on any new Windows install.
Yup, I recently switched all my Windows boxes to MSE from AVG, as AVG started giving me fits after the v.11 update.
Have yet to find a reason to switch again.
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Re:Simple (Score:5, Informative)
Yep.. I'm a big-ol M$ hater, and I can say that MSSE is a pretty decent product.. FIrst thing I put on everyone else's computer after I fail to convince them to run Linux..
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Second this. It's the best thing I've ever seen from Redmond. If all their software worked like this their suckometer would read a hell of a lot lower.
Re:Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
Second this. It's the best thing I've ever seen from Redmond. If all their software worked like this their suckometer would read a hell of a lot lower.
If their other software (read: Windows) worked like 'this', then 'this' wouldn't be needed in the first place. /smirk
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well then you obviously don't have any mid to large size archives on your disk. MSE chokes and uses tons of CPU ( a known issue, supposedly "has gotten better" , not that you would notice a whole lot... ) on rar / or zip files and sometimes cab files when it scans random files in the background and lands on the archive. I've had it choke off a dual core 3.2Ghz processor so bad I thought I was back on a 486DX again with the program load / wait times.
That said it SEEMS to do a decent job, either that or I'm
Re:Simple (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Simple (Score:4, Informative)
MSE is not free: it is free for home users. Business may use only up to ten free licenses before they are required to upgrade to Forefront. If you're a business and using more than ten copies of MSE, you're breaching the license agreement.
Source: the MSE download page [microsoft.com]
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Another advantage (Score:3, Informative)
Is that it updates itself via Windows update. So should it fail to get a virus database update internally, Windows update will fix it. If there's a new version, Windows update will get it. Very good for people who just don't want to mind after the program.
That said, I think there are pay for solutions that are better (NOD32 is what I like) but if you want free, it works great.
Best AV is almost as good as nothing at all (Score:5, Informative)
The only thing AV provides is a false sense of security. With AV, you're waiting until AFTER an infection occurs and then HOPING the AV company you've chosen has A) seen the malware before, B) bothered to add a signature to their definitions list, and C) is actually capable of removing the virus.
Better ideas: Turning on AppLocker & running most of the time as an unprivileged user. Check out OSSEC for use as a File Integrity Monitor and Host-based Intrusion Detection System. Disable unnecessary services, remove unnecessary programs, use an ad-blocker, a "default deny all" firewall policy and get a 3rd party patch manager to keep all your non-MS bits up to date. Secunia PSI is a free patch manager/vuln scanner for home use - there are others.
For a detailed description of just how bad AV is at protecting systems, check out the following blog post at computer-forensics.sans.org:
http://computer-forensics.sans.org/blog/2012/04/09/is-anti-virus-really-dead-a-real-world-simulation-created-for-forensic-data-yields-surprising-results [sans.org]
Re:Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
I downloaded and executed a program called windows web commander while running MSE. It gave me no warning. I had to restore the computer to a date before downloading to get it to work again. It started with a pop up message stating I had a virus. The program asked for money to remove the virus which was essentially itself.
Even the best code can't fix stupid...
NO anti-virus/anti-malware/anti-rootkit/etc gets them all. AV is run as an early warning system. If something slips past, you either restore from backup or scan with another tool and hope it finds whatever got past the first tool.
Re:Simple (Score:5, Informative)
+1.
I've had MSE detect & clean that one of the other free products (think it might have been Avast?) didn't catch - and MSE is no-nonsense, doesn't get in your way, haven't given me false positives (it does flag stuff like keygens though :)), and isn't too hard on system resources.
Combine that with FireFox + AdBlockPlus + NoScript + Ghostery + Certificate Patrol and some common sense, and you should be pretty well off.
Re:Simple (Score:5, Informative)
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Ah yes, forgot to list that one in the bunch - EMET is nice indeed! It's not a failsafe security guarantee, but it does add a nice extra bit of security. Do be sure to test configuration before rolling out corporate-wide, as some software is incompatible with some of the mitigations :)
Oh, and one more (and perhaps obvious) thing: disable Flash, Java and Adobe-PDF in your main browser, as those are the main attack vectors these days. Have a secondary browser/profile for the times you need any of these. Use a
Re:Simple (Score:5, Informative)
I can second this. I've taken to using the MSE offering for family that are on Windows. Two simple reasons. I can flat out tell them to ignore any web prompts for 'free virus scans' and whatnot. Ignore any prompts to purchase virus scan 'updates', etc,
It also removes the irritating ad-ware that Avast and AVG are pushing out lately. They are doing more and more prompts to 'upgrade' which is confusing to older family members. Considering you're a techy this is probably a non-issue, but I do find comfort in the fact that the MS offering isn't likely to quarantine key OS files as Avast and AVG have done multiple times over the last few years.
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I've always had an issue of trust with MSE ... the reason to run AV software is I don't trust Microsoft to write a secure OS.
Trusting them to write the AV software has always seemed like quite a leap for me -- if you can spot them, fix the damned OS.
Granted, I've heard people say really nice things about it. But it has always sounded like asking the security guard who keeps leaving the door unlocked to check if the door is unlocked.
Re:Simple (Score:5, Interesting)
Not the same thing IMO. A great amount of malware requires that the user does something. So "download our .exe and ignore the security prompts!" is still a very large section of things, and has nothing to do with a secure OS or not. Programs running as a user has as many rights as a user themselves. That's what most virus software is for: detecting that you're trying to run something that's "bad" but it's not exploiting security holes to do so. It's just running with "full trust" just like any other program on your machine, and behaving badly.
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Not all malware uses security vulnerabilities to do its thing. And MS security is pretty good these days. Don't let the past blind you to the best free AV for Windows.
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It's a long past to get over. :-P
But I have been seriously considering switching to MSE for quite some time now -- AVG has been really getting more annoying with each release.
But that doesn't mean that it's easy to say "oh, it's Microsoft, they must know lots about security" since for a lot of years they clearly knew nothing at all about it.
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It is a long past.
AND
I really fucking hate MS.
I manage about 25 XP Pro machines at work. I have them all moved to MSE.
Easy, fast, works.
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Not only off-topic, you are also bad at trolling. Also I wonder how "families" can understand technology as a group; how do you aggregate individual expertise? Is the family understanding based on the highest, lowest, average or median understanding of individuals? And does "family" apply only to parents and children living under the same roof, or only to those sharing a computer? You need to provide more details about your deep analysis of how Linux solves the problem of choosing a free antivirus.
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Agreed. MSE is the the only free antivirus worth anything. The rest are being monetized and try to trick you into buying the paid ones, if they don't just plain suck. Also the only one I don't feel is slowing down my computer. Before MSE, I just didn't use any, the AV was worse than the rare virus infection.
I had Avast on one computer a while ago. That was actually quite unobtrusive. That or MSE would be my choice.
Re: (Score:3)
Seconded, MSE works just great, without any hassle. The other product that I use is Panda Cloud Antivirus. It does occasionally try to persuade you to buy the full version, but otherwise it just works, and it is lighter on the CPU than MSE. I used to be a bit fan of Avira Antivirus, but it got too annoying, and had too many false positives for comfort.
Re:Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Peter Norton should sue Symantec for defamation of character.
The original Norton Utilities were lean, mean must-haves. Anything called "Norton" nowadays is a steaming pile of shit that you run away from as fast as you can.
I would not recommend it. (Score:3)
It is free and easy to use. It also seems to be easier on the resources than some other tools. However I have had it miss things that other programs found (and they were NOT false positives). I know of other people that have experienced this problem as well. I recently looked through some antivirus comparisons and MSSE really fell short on a few of those tests. If I remember correctly, one of these tests had MSSE fail to detect about 14%. I would look for other software.
--
If a person gives their two cents o
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Simple (Score:4, Informative)
My only qualm with MSE: My mother-in-law (and my wife's sister, who lived with the m-i-l) managed to impressively infect a Windows XP system that I had MSE installed on.
So far as I could tell, something broke Windows updates, which in turn meant that MSE updates didn't flow, and the infestation ran wild... to the point that the computer was unusable.
In my work experience, it's easy for Windows updates to break or be broken. It was nonfunctional on my work computer for the better part of a year before I reloaded it.
This experience led me to believe that antivirus should have its own, hardened, secure, simple update path independent of Windows system management technologies.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Simple (Score:4, Insightful)
> A virus (usually) can't damage the PC, it might destroy the data on it, but you can just reinstall in
> a worst case scenario.
In the very narrow realm of "Physical Damage to your PC", you are absolutely correct. There are some, at least theoretical, exceptions.... CRT monitors that could be put into damaging modes... excessive constant drive access could decrease its lifetime.... some flash technologies have limite dwrites.... meh.... no big deal.
That said, damage to my pc doesn't even enter into my "worst case scenario" when it comes to this sort of compromise.
My worst case involves things like, I connect to work from home and they steal my credentials (of course 2 factor auth helps but, even without my token they can still get in when I connect). Install a keylogger on the box and get my banking passwords and clean out my accounts.
but hey, having to fix my pc...that would suck
Re: (Score:3)
It should be pointed out though, Antivirus will have nothing to do with preserving the liftime of your PC.
You'd be surprised. I've known people who get a computer, use it until it's so bogged down with crap and viruses that it's unusable*, then toss it out and get a new one. They have no conception of what a recovery disk/partition is. At all. Software and hardware are all part of the magic box and they have no interest in differentiating.
(* For these people, half an hour boot time is merely "slow". Unusable means "won't boot".)
Re: (Score:3)
One that immediately springs to mind is Medusa. I lost a machine to this in 1999(?): the thing wrote itself to the BIOS and killed the system dead. I managed to save everything else, but a new mainboard was required as I couldn't simply reflash the thing.
Re:Simple (Score:4, Funny)
Uh oh, sounds like you might have an infection that's sapping your performance. Might need to get a third antivirus program and install it alongside the other two. Make sure you leave realtime scanning on so that all three of them get a good look at every file that the system is opening and closing behind the scenes. Surely one of them can identify the rogue files.
Good luck!
Re: (Score:3)
FWIW, if the default behaviour upon discovery of an infection is to delete the file, and you have enabled scanning within archives, any anti-virus software would have done the same thing.
Microsoft Security Essentials (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Keep in mind MSE is only free for organizations for under 10 people...
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Can, not must.
Like I said when I read it it did not requite you to stop using MSE, it just recommended that you stop using it if you had more than 10 PCs.
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Blasphemy (Score:5, Informative)
But if you're running Windows, you could actually do a lot worse than Microsoft Security Essentials...
You want ad-blocking, not AV (Score:5, Informative)
One of the primary causes of malware is drive-by intrusion via compromised or unmaintained ad servers. Instead of worrying about free antivirus (which by definition rarely catches real 0-day threats), I'd get an ad blocker, or a utility like the paid version of Malwarebytes which blocks malicious website IPs.
Block the IPs and what spits out the malware, don't bother playing whack-a-mole against the latest polymorphic stuff.
As for antivirus, just go with MSE. It usually is in the middle of the pack, is lightweight, and the price is right.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't want a virus? Do the following:
1. Remove all adobe products. Flash is ok with flashblock.
2. Keep firefox or chrome up to date, don't use IE.
3. Remove java plugin.
4. Install adblock and noscript.
5. Have a router, block everything inbound.
The number of things that can infect you with that setup is about 0.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, that is nice. Problem is usability goes down. I use adblock, but noscript and flashblock gets pretty bothersome after a while - and the one in a billion sites they protect against that adblock doesn't already block seems to be well within the capabilities of my anti-virus.
The solution is never being perfectly safe, it's being as safe as you can without unduly compromising usability.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Also:
Spybot: http://www.safer-networking.org/ [safer-networking.org]
Even if you don't use the active registry monitor, you can use it to scrub your registry now and then. And you can 'innoculate' your system with it too by adding read-only junk registry entries for many pieces of spywire, so the spyware itself can't dig their fingers into your machine.
Re: (Score:2)
Spybot is a good choice as well.
Of course, there is always Sandboxie which does help with limiting what access a program has. I don't know how well it can deal with a determined 0-day exploit that has ways of getting Admin rights from a user context, but it does redirect all writes from the filesystem and Registry into a safe location [1].
[1]: From personal experience, keep the Sandboxie sandbox on a different partition than normal stuff. That way, should something try something malicious or just keep wr
MSE has low footprint (Score:3)
My favorite free one (Score:5, Informative)
Avira or AVG (Score:4, Informative)
AVG Free http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage [avg.com]
or
Avira Free http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus [avira.com]
To be good free solutions.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm losing patience with AVG. It used to be really good.
Now it wants to inform me when I'm going to do an update and reboot (I'll tell you when you can reboot), and it wants to push me towards the paid version, and it wants to install a bunch of extra crap all the time.
I'm in the market for a replacement for AVG myself. It has really gone down hill since I started using it in terms of overall experience. It has started to be like the Oracle Java installer where you have to read very carefully to keep all
Simple (Score:2)
AVG Free (Score:2)
Microsoft Security Essentials (Score:4, Informative)
As others have stated, MSE does a very good job. It easily outclasses the other freebies, and most of the non-free ones as well. For example, I've seen it clean up machines that got infested while under AVG's watch.
And it doesn't slow your machine down to a crawl, which is nice.
I smell something funny... (Score:2, Insightful)
"...reasonably competent CPU user"
Using 'CPU' in this incorrect context is a pet peeve.
But anyway, MSE (as other have said) and AdBlocker and/or NoScript for your browser. Assuming you're using anything other than IE. If you're using IE switch to a better condom!
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah I was wondering if I am the only one who doesn't know what a exactly a "CPU user" is. The terms CPU and computer are not interchangeable.
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
What the hell does that even mean? Do you mean computer?
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
He's self-taught and doesn't know any real computer nerds who can guide him, but is probably the most computer-savvy person in his family.
Probably knows enough to run Windows, his games, and a web browser.
AVG is my choice for free Anti-Virus (Score:2)
ClamWin (Score:2)
It's free (as in beer) and open-source. It's also very light-weight and works and updates without a hitch.
Re:ClamWin (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, also doesn't do any resident background protection, network monitoring or link scanning, which all major antivirus tools do nowadays. The only reason to put ClamWin on a Windows machine if it is running 2000 or earlier, which is about the only current AV that will run on those systems.
Microsoft Security Essentials (Score:5, Insightful)
First I used Avast, but after a while it began bugging me to to buy the paid version, and slowed down my PC with ill-timed, intensive scans.
I switched to AVG, but after a while it began bugging me to to buy the paid version, and slowed down my PC with ill-timed, intensive scans.
Now I use Microsoft Security Essentials, which is surprisingly good. So far.
Complement with a Spybot Search and Destroy scan every now and then and you're good to go.
MSE (Score:2)
I used to use AVG, but I found it gradually became slower and slower, and stopped actually catching viruses.
Microsoft Security Essentials has the downside of being made by Microsoft, but the plus side of being extremely low-footprint and actually catching things. I pair it with the occasional MBAM scan out of paranoia (MBAM is good at finding and removing infections, but terrible at actively stopping them).
Finally, yeah, throw some AdBlock on there. Almost all the viruses I've caught in the past few years (
Comment removed (Score:3)
MSE + Secunia PSI (Score:2)
Keep good backups (Score:2)
It's not what you asked, but it's at least as important:
Keep good, usable, uninfected backups of anything that's important to you.
Also, have a means to restore your computer to a known good state and have the ability to re-install applications you want.
free antivirus list (Score:3)
It's not only about the antivirus (Score:5, Insightful)
Try to use a non-admin account for your daily stuff. An escalated admin account when you do need to install stuff is just 2 clicks away (start -> change user)
I've had my computer-illiterate parents on a non-admin account for 20 years now, they still haven't gotten a virus. And yes, they're still computer-illiterate ^^
Your post reads like bad market research (Score:5, Funny)
Have you tried Common Sense 2012? I hear it works well in most sensible cases. Other than that on the cheap : Microsoft Security Essentials. It seems a bit contradictory to let MS handle anti-virus software, but at least it doesn't hog your system as badly as most other products.
reasonably competent CPU user
Yes, I know how you feel. I like to think of myself a I/O aficionado. I have a friend who's a memory expert. We know a guy who was pretty much a BIOS guru, but he's not feeling too well lately after hearing about the UEFI thing.
but I do download some music as a recent SoundCloud devotee
I hardly know anyone who downloads their music from SoundCloud. Most tracks are either demos (with a link to itunes, amazon, juno or whatever). And the few amateurs that are serious about their music have already joined one of the many netlabels where you can usually download entire albums from their own site or bandcamp.
Are you by any chance doing market research, trying to infiltrate into the tech crowd while looking young, hip, dynamic and social 2.0 web networking? You're doing a splendid job, I might add. However, please forgive my sarcasm if you're not, your post seems to read like a 55 year old police officer going under cover "buyin' da ganja mon, totally down with da 'erb an' ting".
Re: (Score:3)
Don't forget that he bought an Acer and is expecting to get some longevity out of it.
Re:Your post reads like bad market research (Score:4, Funny)
55? Oh my gracious no, double that. If you have a moment, I highly recommend you re-read the original post while imagining Mr Burns' voice.
> I like to think of myself a I/O aficionado.
> I have a friend who's a memory expert.
If I drank coffee, you'd owe me a new keyboard and/or screen. :-)
Good news/Bad news (Score:3)
Good News: The free Microsoft AV (MSE) is basically as good as any product we looked at.
Bad News: All AV sucks to varying degrees. Noone consistently had both good detection and quick enough signature updates. We see AV as a small piece of overlapping defense.
At least as important:
- Relentless patching of everything on your box (look at Secuna PSI for home use).
- Use a non-admin account for daily computing. Consider using throw-away Windows VMs when visiting potentially dangerous territory.
- Ad/Flash/Script blockers plugins.
- Disable Java.
Things like this probably have as much bang-for-buck as AV.
Advert/Shill much? (Score:4, Insightful)
This place really has gone down hill - 'first time submitter' wants to know what anti-virus to use. Information given:
I have a Acer laptop and I use SoundCloud.
Any hint to operating system? No. We will have to assume Windows then. Which is confirmed by the first post within a couple of minutes [where is the frosty piss post?] :
'Windows: Microsoft Security Essentials, free if you have Microsoft Windows XP or higher, and it does work especially for the technical, not too adventerous link clicker. Gives you that extra layer of protection you seem to want for those 'oh shit' moments.'
From an AC and modded 5 Informative.
News for nerds - stuff that matters. I remember them days well.
Feel free to join me over at hacker news.
A free anti-virus that isn't MSE... (Score:3)
College student? Check your benefits (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted it was ten years ago, but when I went to UNCC, there was a small selection of software provided by the school under a shared license for free to students. This included, in my case, norton corporate, which was not intrusive and did an admirable job. Might wanna check around and see if you have similar options available. While the best free AV might be MSE for Windows, you might be able to get a paid AV for free.
AV-Comparatives.org (Score:5, Informative)
http://av-comparatives.org/ [av-comparatives.org]
This tests a lot of antivirus and shows you their detection rate, false-positive rate, etc.
I myself promote Avira Antivir, which is lightweight, does well on AV-Comparatives.org, and is gratis.
Of course, the best solution is to install Ubuntu; if you choose it, I can give you free support over email.
And remember: any Windows antivirus (even, to a lesser degree, Ubuntu) will only attenuate the problem. You are _not_ safe just because you have a good antivirus (or run Ubuntu). You _must_ take care: don't go to rogue sites, don't execute untrusted executables, don't use pirated software, etc.
Good luck.
hardware endures malware (Score:3)
"...make sure that my recent investment in an Acer laptop will last me a good long while"
Huh? Please don't tell me that you're one of those people who think that once a computer gets infected with malware that it has to be thrown out. Wipe the hard drive (or replace it if you want to be super-thorough) and reload the OS, apps, and data. Presto: investment salvaged.
In fact, you might want to do this from time to time even if your computer doesn't get properly infected, because Windows (and to a lesser extent other OSes) build up performance-sucking cruft over time as you use them. I refurb the "retired" laptops before my employer sells them off, and the people who buy their old ones are often surprised at how fast they run after a clean reinstall of Windows.
Slashdot is missing something (Score:5, Funny)
Linux + Virtualbox (Score:3)
For my business clients that have to use Windows, I've had good experiences with installing Linux on the machine, then installing Virtualbox, then installing Windows within Virtualbox. When (not if) Windows gets a virus, I have them roll back to the last good snapshot. The virus goes away when the rollback occurs.
This won't work if you want to play games, of course. But for pure business use, it's been successful.
How about this: no antivirus (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't mean "use Linux", which has already been suggested a number of times, predictably. I mean no antivirus installed whatsoever, and do the following:
- Before you run any binaries and otherwise infectable files you download, run them through an online antivirus (e.g. ESET).
- In Explorer, don't generate thumbnails.
- services.msc and disable everything you don't need
- Run a firewall. Even a basic one will do.
- Don't use IE or Outlook.
That's how I roll, and I know for a fact I haven't had a virus for about a decade. I'm absolutely positive the machine isn't in a botnet or anything of that sort because I regularly monitor my traffic in the router. If I had a virus I almost certainly wouldn't be able to browse to ESET online or any other antivirus site. Finally ESET online also scans the RAM.
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Agree with everything (including him being a jerk), except for the virus point. Which is not to say that Macs cannot get them (they absolutely can), just that OS X hasn't had any yet that I'm aware of. All of their malware so far has been of the trojan variety, which is the simplest to make and the most difficult to protect against.
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I would label "radical optimism" as a virus.
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Well, I'm certain your computing needs are identical to everyone else's.
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Reading the other comments I remembered that ISPs sometimes provides A/V. I'm using Norton's latest Security Suite provided by Comcast (at no charge).
Re:Winblows, LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
you realize that attitudes like yours and GPs are exactly what turns prospective linux neophytes off, right?
For an every-day user, Linux has just as many problems as windows. the problems are just completely different. Source: I use both linux and windows every day. typing this on a linux laptop for pete's sake.
For the OP's concerns, linux very well may be his best option, but telling him that he's been playing in the little kid's sandbox is very nearly as counterproductive as telling him that he's a retard, as GP did.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For the vast majority of people, Linux is a heap of useless trash. It's inconsistent. It has relatively poor hardware compatibility. It has no software compatibility for software that real people care about. There's basically no good reason for the average home user to touch it.
Re:Winblows, LOL (Score:4)
I disagree, but I'm much closer to your opinion than the two hopeless fanboys that posted earlier.
Full disclosure, I use Linux in a professional environment. We use it to run wifi hardware, and in LAMP configurations for websites. Personally, I have used Linux off and on for the past six years, and Windows since it existed.
For the combination of low resource overhead and stability, Linux (CentOS in our case) beat Windows hands-down for the hardware that we sell to clients. We need something that will act as a router, bridge, or access point, so we need it to stay up and running for as long as possible. We don't upgrade hardware often, so as long as it works when it's installed it'll probably be fine, and we don't need to update the OS for the same reason.
In all other regards, Linux has been at best something that we can work around, and at worst a hindrance.
In 2012, being limited to a command line is archaic and counter-productive, so a user should be able to accomplish most if not all tasks from within a GUI. We can argue about command line interfaces and how 1337sauce they are all day, but the fact that all serious OSs on the market, including Linux, incorporate GUIs tends to indicate that moving away from command lines considered a good move by people that design and develop operating systems. It might be faster for people who are used to it to live in the command line, but the overwhelming majority of users want GUIs that provide all the functionality they need, and people who are in the business of making operating systems respond to this. And, overall, if the GUI is well-designed, it's generally more efficient than the command line. My opinion, yes, but I'll argue it all day.
Any security gains in Linux (and there certainly are) are mitigated by the obscurity of the system itself. Yes, you can batten down a Linux installation to a level of security you don't see with MS if you know what you're doing. The problem is that you have to have a high level of comfort and expertise with the OS to see these benefits; you can realize at least base-line security on a Windows machine without having to know anything about IPTABLES. It's like the classic martial arts dilemma: Chinese boxing might be superior to all other martial arts, but it takes decades to achieve mastery; a student of Krav Maga or jujitsu can become competent in a few years.
At our office I and another person write the documentation. With Open Office, we ran into formatting issues that, frankly, made it impossible to produce a professional-looking document. Even the person who'd been doing the documentation before, who is a self-described "Linux guy", admitted that he'd reached the limits of what could be done with OOo, and recommended I use Wine to install Office. This required that I switch distros, because CentOS doesn't support the latest version of Wine, which was required to install Office 2010 (a copy of which had already been purchased for a previous employee). Admittedly, the alternative was to install some flavor of Windows on a VM, but that would've required buying a license; I work at a very small company where cost is always an issue. Eventually, after some tweaking, I got Wine to install Office and launch it reliably, although there are stability issues.
As a gamer, too, I can speak to Wine and Linux in home applications. Yes, some games run under Wine. Certainly not all, and not even most. Also, big releases, especially multiplayer games, remain the province of Windows. It's changing, slowly, and Steam going to Linux is a promising development, but a PC running Windows remains the best platform for gaming. And, sure, you can run a VM, but then you're adding to hardware requirements that new releases already stretch on most PCs.
I know it's sort of de rigeur to hate Windows if you like Linux, but it's not the 1990s. Linux has come a long way, especially Ubuntu, and I think the argument can be made that some distros are no longer "hobbyist" OSs, but Windows remains the authoritative PC operat
Re: (Score:3)
"Facts" mentioned in parent post are five-plus years out of date.
Talking about Linux versus Windows is pretty much like talking about aircraft versus Chevrolet sedans. There are as many variants of Linux as there are different kinds of aircraft, so there are not many generalized comparisons that can be made between all of them and Windows. Just like it is hard to find a general comparison between Chevies and (fighter jets/helicopters/bush planes/cargo planes).
Of the several Linux distros that are directly
Re:Winblows, LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
Facts mentioned in this post are 5 years in the future because the Linux experience you describe does not exist. Easier to administer than Windows. Fuck off. "It is possible to change the DE easily". Fuck off. I've been waiting 3 hours for lubuntu-desktop to install dozens of unnecessary packages for me and now it's failed and refuses to give me LXDE. That's not a five years in the past out of date blah di blah di fanboi. That's just happened. Right this second. Linux has been going backwards for ages. It used to be really lean and reliable. Now it's festooned with pointless bloat that is poorly tested and annoyingly slow and unreliable. If they wanted to duplicate the Vista experience they've done it. Otherwise you are pretending that you didn't have to dick about with the damn thing for ages to get to a level of functionality that is out of the box on Windows 7 or Mac OS.