Two Cans & String

{ "thread_id": "7976", "posts": [ { "id": "773606", "time": "1397609241", "html": "The two antivirus programs that I often find myself using are Malwarebytes, and free Avast for active protection. Now that I have a decent computer that is running Windows instead of Linux, I was looking to see what paid antivirus programs are worth the money down. If any, really. I manage to keep things fairly safe with free ones, but am curious to see what you all think of as far as the best protection goes.", "user": "verum" }, { "id": "773610", "time": "1397610158", "html": "Malwarebytes is all I use... But MaximumPC (a popular magazine, which I read and would recommend) did a round up not too long ago. <a href=\"http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/best_antivirus_2013?page=0,0\">Here</a> is a link to the online article. At the end is a side by side comparison chart.<br />\n<br />\nEdit: I use the free version of Malwarebytes. So it doesn't actively stop malware/viruses... But this is fine for me.<br />\n<br />\nEdit Edit: Isn't avast the one with the annoying sounds? So silly.", "user": "harok" }, { "id": "773613", "time": "1397611930", "html": "Yup, it makes sounds that can be turned off. <img src=\"/images/common/emoticons/tongue.png\" alt=\":P\" />", "user": "verum" }, { "id": "773621", "time": "1397615886", "html": "I find Norton is like an overly attached girlfriend; always sending me messages and things.", "user": "qwertymain" }, { "id": "773638", "time": "1397637608", "html": "I'm a big Malwarebytes fan, and if you're serious about the live protection aspect of things, consider purchasing the license. Avast, Kaspersky, McAfee, Norton, AVG, Symantec... They're all (by my standards) super invasive, annoying and if you know more about the internet than how to get to Google and/or porn... you don't need that sort of over-the-top port-redirecting, firewall-messing, money-grabbing pain.", "user": "tigerlivie" }, { "id": "775016", "time": "1398542481", "html": "I wouldn't recommend McAfee or AVG. In my experience, they don't do very good at what they're meant to do.", "user": "ombra" }, { "id": "775039", "time": "1398549537", "html": "I use Avast internet security, though only recently, I've used Avast free in the past and I've hardly ever gotten viruses, it has a good real time scanner that always blocks malicious downloads/websites, though once or twice it's blocked legitimate downloads. Norton and McAfee in my experience are cpu/memory hogs and AVG didn't seem to really do anything. I use malwarebytes if I really need to clean things out. As for paid vs free, I haven't noticed much of a difference since switching to a paid version. Also yes, Avast can be told to shut up with the annoying sounds/popups when it updates.", "user": "awesometurtles" }, { "id": "782015", "time": "1403132204", "html": "I use free antivirus as well. I used Avast for a while but it wasn't working very well for me so when I got my new shiny awesome laptop (it's just a medium quality one but helluh better than my past PCs) I switched to Avira, which works really well. It isn't very invasive, and only talks to you when it's time to scan or when there's a potential threat, which is really nice. I'd recommend it. <br />\nAs for paid, I've heard Kaspersky is like the best of the best, but I've never been able to afford really expensive protection so I don't know first hand.", "user": "summersland" }, { "id": "1229600", "time": "1660586692", "html": "I'm a cyber security professional and often write malware for a living. I've systematically processed hundreds of thousands of samples through every single AV product on the planet. I can tell you none do a better job of detection overall than the free tools already installed in Windows. Some do just as good of a job, and you will always have anomalies where one product or another catches something and the others don't. If an obfuscated binary gets caught, it usually gets caught by all of the major players. Some just plain stink, but most are OK. Windows Defender routinely comes out on top, however. But since none really stand out as catching more things than the others, why would anyone pay for additional software that is arguably malware itself? You are literally installing a root kit to protect you from other root kits. I don't inherently trust any of them, and some of them in implicitly do NOT trust (see CN360, Kaspersky, and to some extent Norton). Because of all of this, I recommend people take reasonable precautions and do not install AV unless they have a bad habit of clicking on everything, in which case the AV probably won't save you anyway.", "user": "dmkrodge" }, { "id": "1229826", "time": "1660766248", "html": "I couldn't agree with you more.<br />You should make an intro if you're up to it. (twocansandstring.com/forum/introductions) There are computer enthusiasts of quite a few different stripes hiding around the site. Who knows, maybe some wanna come say hello.", "user": "ecr674" } ], "users": { "verum": { "name": "Verum", "key": "verum", "url": "/users/verum", "avatar": "/uploads/drawn/1365.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "3597" }, "harok": { "name": "Harok", "key": "harok", "url": "/users/harok", "avatar": "/uploads/drawn/1296.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "2299" }, "qwertymain": { "name": "qwertymain", "key": "qwertymain", "url": "/users/qwertymain", "avatar": "/uploads/drawn/5451.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "715" }, "tigerlivie": { "name": "tigerlivie", "key": "tigerlivie", "url": "/users/tigerlivie", "avatar": "/images/white.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "522" }, "ombra": { "name": "Ombra", "key": "ombra", "url": "/users/ombra", "avatar": "/uploads/drawn/1647.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "1849" }, "awesometurtles": { "name": "awesometurtles", "key": "awesometurtles", "url": "/users/awesometurtles", "avatar": "/uploads/drawn/1458.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "930" }, "summersland": { "name": "Summer's land", "key": "summersland", "url": "/users/summersland", "avatar": "/uploads/drawn/951.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "2517" }, "dmkrodge": { "name": "dmkrodge", "key": "dmkrodge", "url": "/users/dmkrodge", "avatar": "/images/white.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "1" }, "ecr674": { "name": "ecr674", "key": "ecr674", "url": "/users/ecr674", "avatar": "/uploads/drawn/13847.png", "rankClass": "civilian", "rankText": "", "posts": "3112" } }, "page_num": 1, "locked": 0, "total_pages": 1 }

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