Do you use antivirus and which do you use?

[marurun]

Even with Firefox, NoScript is also nice to have. It can be a pain to manage, but it's worth it.

[executioner]

Use the free Avira Antivir.

[Niode]

I use Kaspersky. Very small overhead. Well, I don't notice it on a 4GB 1066mhz ram + Q6600 system.

To all the guys who say they don't run AVS and say they've never got a virus, how do you know? Most trojans worth their salt have very minimum impact on system resources and will try their hardest not to be detected. These trojans are used in botnets. You have no idea what-so-ever that you are running a zombie machine just waiting for commands from the host. The only time that you could possible know is if you see a sudden spike in outgoing connections since it's been told to start sending spam/DDOS.

[dsheinem]

To all the guys who say they don't run AVS and say they've never got a virus, how do you know? Most trojans worth their salt have very minimum impact on system resources and will try their hardest not to be detected.

I don't usually get them because I don't install them "by mistake" (e.g. running shady warez, opening attachments I don't trust, etc.) or go to websites that might try to install them. Using Firefox is also a good way to cut down on browser-based attacks. The very few times I have had some kind of malware/virus problem, I was able to detect it and fix it quickly enough that it didn't cause any damage.

As a point of comparison, I have a laptop given to me by work that always runs McAfee, installs Windows Updates, etc. It never tells me that I've been attacked either as my usage habits are basically the same on both machines. I do find, however, that all of the "protection" programs hog some system resources and often cause annoying update reminders and long update times.

That said, I do run AVG, TrendMicro, Spybot, HiJackThis, etc. on occasion (every 6-9 months) as not doing so is just plain dumb. I must say, however, that 90% of the time or more, my PC gets a clean bill of health from these programs. That is because I have been careful as to what I let get on my PC.

I generally don't understand how so many people I know who have ostensibly grown up with computers, use them for work and school, etc. run into so damn many technical problems. Sure, it keeps the Geek Squad in business, but the high degree of computer illiteracy of 30somethings and younger is astounding to me. Of course most people couldn't change their own oil or properly hook up their televisions either, so maybe there's a larger intelligence problem here...

/rant

[Ziggy]

God, Tea Timer is awesome. I absolutely love it.

On my one computer, I was only using Spy Bot with Tea Timer for a while. I grew to hate Tea Timer so much. It would always start using 50-99 CPU in task manager out of no where. Then after I read about how it doesn't even work that great, I stopped using it entirely.

[Niode]

I'd just like to make it clear that I have never had a virus on any system the entire time I've used PCs (which is getting close to 15 years now). I don't get viruses on my Mac because it's a Mac. The amount of viruses OS X and Linux has had in it's entire history could be summed up on a piece of A4.

I do find it quite depressing at the amount of people who are just absolutely retards when it comes to computers. It seems that common sense goes straight out of the window when they put a mouse in their hand.

Some people should just never use a PC, ever. It's the prevalence of sheer idiots using windows that has caused the virus epidemic on the system. The virus coders know that people are idiots and exploit the shit out of them.

I think the UAC was a good idea and I think that there should be some sort of IQ test that is administered when a user tries to disable it. The UAC in my opinion could be a hell of a lot tighter than it is.

[Ack]

God, Tea Timer is awesome. I absolutely love it.

On my one computer, I was only using Spy Bot with Tea Timer for a while. I grew to hate Tea Timer so much. It would always start using 50-99 CPU in task manager out of no where. Then after I read about how it doesn't even work that great, I stopped using it entirely.

That's really weird, I've never had any issues with it like that. It's helped me out immensely.

[jfrost]

I don't think anti-viruses are really necessary, but I keep Avira Antivir installed just in case I plug in an infected flash drive or something.

[scikoolaid]

I think it depends what you value you put on a virus program.

I have the following on my computer...
avast! anti-virus 4.8 home
sygate personal firewall
peer guardian 2 (for torrenting)

firefox 3.0.7 with.. NoScript, FlashBlock, and Interclue (interclue it lets you preview a link in a small box without actually loading the page)

and i have a host file from...
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
consistently updated list of known bad domains, the host file in windows can loop them to your local 127.0.0.1 machine thereby meaning you can't even make a connection to them in the first place.

am i paranoid? nah... more like carefree. even without all of this stuff you really only asking for bad stuff when your clicking around questionable websites.

[scikoolaid]

God, Tea Timer is awesome. I absolutely love it.

On my one computer, I was only using Spy Bot with Tea Timer for a while. I grew to hate Tea Timer so much. It would always start using 50-99 CPU in task manager out of no where. Then after I read about how it doesn't even work that great, I stopped using it entirely.

That's really weird, I've never had any issues with it like that. It's helped me out immensely.

Ah, Tea Timer was useful at first for me too, getting to see all the registry changes behind the scenes, but sometimes it would be too slow to ask for me to ok something or not, and as a result start screwing up installs and the like. I no longer use it... SpybotS&D is still good regardless of the slower than a snail scanning speed. Ad-aware as well when you feel the need to scan your computer.