What Antivirus/Internet Security do you run?

Also please list your security setup

Mine is:

ESET NOD32 Antivirus (real time)
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (on demand)
SUPERAntiSpyware (on demand, only use it to get rid of tracking cookies in the browser as it's no good for real malware removal)
Custom hosts file which blocks telmetry, Open Candy, SouceForge, and a few other bad sites

 

McAfee Total Protection
Malwarebytes on demand
Browser
Privacy Badger
Canvas Blocker-New Cookie-Canvas Fingerprint thru HTML 5 and Java Script


Happy New Year




Cheers
3fees


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HP Pavilion 17" Windows 10 Pro AMD Elite A10-5750M-8750G-APU,Micron-Crucial Ballistix Sport- 16GB DDR3L- 1866Mhz , Samsung Pro SSD

Acer V5 Windows 10 Pro Intel Core i5-5200U/HD 5500 ,1080P, Nvidia 940M, 16GB DDR3L Samsung Pro SSD, Qualcomm Atheros 802.11 AC-wireless card

 

I have previously used Kaspersky & Norton. Currently, I use Avira.

 

McAfee security suite, MalwareBytes, and SuperAntiSpyware. Would never use any other.

 

Sophos Home and HitmanPro.Alert

 

avast internet security for 4 years
malwarebytes free

 

Avast Free Version for a few years now. Nice and light footprint on the machines and it can be configured to just run the File/Mail &Web shields.

Will upgrade to Pro once I sort my machine out the way I like it.

Not tried Malwarebytes but will do on recommendations here.

 

Sophos Endpoint, as provided by my school. It works really well

 

Installed Malwarebytes on a couple of machines today and I'm pleased to say mine were 'clean' which was pleasing.

Mentioned it to colleagues and it didn't go so well for one of them, especially those who use 'Imgburn' it seems.

I'd happily recoomend this software and I'll pay to upgrade it for it on my main use laptop.

 

Using Windows Defender in Windows 10 along with Malwarebytes Free (on-demand).
Been using MSE + MBAM Free on Windows 7 just before that.
Both have been and continue to be virus and malware free.

Btw... I never understood low MSE scores because I never had virus or other issues going through my MSE in Windows 7 (because it actually caught stuff on other people's computers that most commercial 'high scoring' AV software missed) - I verified this after scanning the OS with third party software such as Avast and Nod32 (both of which came up clean).

Also, Windows Defender apparently underwent through revisions which vastly improved its recent AV test scores, so I guess that's an extra 'bonus' for me, though I wasn't really paying that much attention to AV test scores beyond having them for general guidance (and how relatively misguided they seemed when it came to MSE).

 

Personally, I think good firewall is more important than anti virus program. Unless the virus is programmed just for sports to blindly destroy user data, any other type of virus would require some kind of internet connection, to send data or receive instructions. Cut that data exchange and most viruses are pointless.

 

That reminds me of the early days of zonealarm, where it would actively monitor all firewall traffic and tell you whats going in and out.

 

Maybe we should go back? Instead of answering "do you want CCleaner.exe to run on your computer" for 100 time yes, maybe we should be answering firewall popups "do you want MS telemetry to be send to internet"?

 

I change every so often. Current running the following:

Windows setup:
-Avira Free
-Malwarebytes Free
-Default Windows firewall
-(Chrome) Ghostery and ABP

Linux setup:
-Default distro firewall
-(Chrome) Ghostery and ABP

Really though, there's not much of a point running AV (especially paid-for) if you keep due diligence, don't visit sketchy websites, and disable unneeded/untrusted scripting on webpages. A lot of attacks these days are social engineering based, so as long as you keep aware of such scams and tricks, you should be fine.

 

No option for "none" in the list?

 

Avast and MalwareBytes Free are good enough for me.

 

your wish is my command. "None" has been added to the poll. Please cast your vote

 

Done! Thanks. Rep added.

 

@Ethrem @toughasnails @downloads @Papusan @hmscott @Prema @GTVEVO

On a side note, I just switched to Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security, super light, 0 false positives. Has a nice Windows and social media vulnerability scanner which scanned my profile profile and alerted me about security concerns that I had like having my posts viewable to the public and whatnot. I really like it, it performs the social media scan and and gives you one button to fix all security concerns. It fixed both my Facebook security issues and my Internet Explorer settings (even though I don't use IE but still why not)

What I like most about it is that you set it and forget it, no popups, no false positives, it did not interfere with my system or prevent my VPN from working.

Trend Micro was one of the heavier AV programs 2 years back but since last year, they did a complete overhaul of their AV and it became very light with an awesome user interface.

My ASUS RT-AC5300 also has built in protection from Trend Micro that would catch any virus before it reaches any device connected to it like cell phones, tablets, etc so that's a nice layer of extra protection.

I did a test with wPRIME before/after installing Trend Micro and the performance hit was only 0.1 seconds which is negligible





I highly suggest you try the trial demo, it has no nags to upgrade or buy it like Kaspersky keeps nagging upon every restart when you install the trial. Additionally, when you do purchase the license, the 30 days license from the trial gets added to your new license so you get a free month on your newly purchased license.

I will post the link to the AV only installer as I had trouble getting it at first, the downloader on their site was insisting to download the full suite Max Security which I didn't want. I only go for the lean and mean AV always. Hate the extra bloat from the suites.

Download Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security Trial

 

Dang, bro. You change antivirus as often as some people change their underwear. (OK, hopefully that's not actually true... that would really stink... literally.)

 

you are right, I tried them all. Reason being, I want to have that extra bit of security knowing that I can download/run anything without worrying.

Secondly, the performance impact of an AV is very important for me because it determines how well / fast my system runs, IMHO, the AV is as important as choosing a good CPU/RAM/GPU because it directly impacts performance, so I am always on the hunt for finding the best balance between security / light or no performance impact.

 

@Mr. Fox

nevermind, this is going for a refund, it capped my USB Transfer speeds to 40 MB/S down from 150 MB/S!

 

@Phoenix
I gave up on it for different reasons although rather quickly as well.

For one it forced me to uninstall Spybot even though there is no proven incompatibility between the two. Off course it can be re-installed later but I'm annoyed by such actions.

Secondly - even though I unchecked the setting that was supposed to delete detected threats immediately, it still deleted files during system scan without asking for permission. I assumed that un-checking "delete immediately" implies "ask before deleting" - apparently not.

Thirdly - with TrendMicro and Outpost firewall running I was unable to launch any of the browsers. Having uninstalled TM I can launch browsers again (Outpost is still on).

There were some other incompatibility issues between Outpost and TrendMicro (which left a mess even after both applications have been uninstalled) but I can't put the blame on either of them.

Scanning speed was definitely brilliant although RAM usage was not (some 130MB while doing nothing).

And not I have a ton of issues to fix and things to re-install because files got deleted during scan even though they shouldn't have been being neither threats nor TM being allowed to delete them.

 

Right, good idea I created a system image before installing it. I then reverted back to that image, re-enabled Windows Defender with the extra PUP Detection reg trick and made a refund request.

What baffles me is why my USB transfer speeds were capped @ 40 MB/S even after disabling the active protection, only uninstalling Trend Micro AV did the speeds go back to normal.

 

There must be a low level driver that allows AV to access all files as all times. Similar solution is used by firewalls and I have discovered that a very similar things happen - throughput with very fast connections can be severely limited by the performance of said low lever driver (for some reason it's far more pronounced on Wi-Fi than Ethernet)

I assume it's the same problem here.

 

NOD32 does the same exact thing, disabling has 0 effect on any issue I may have at hand, only full uninstallation solves the issue of whatever problem I am facing.

I feel that these AVs are interfering way too much with systems I'd rather just use Windows Defender with the PUP reg trick and call it a day, then rerun MBAM on demand for any suspicious files.

PS: I have a lifetime license for MBAM Premium, I don't know, do you think it would slow down my system if I use it in conjunction with Windows Defender and set exclusions in both apps or better to keep doing things that way I am, Windows Defender for active protection and MBAM on demand scans?

 

In theory it shouldn't, but you know how it is. When I uninstalled TrendMicro UAC and Windows Defender that had been disabled for years suddenly became active - in theory they shouldn't have but...

 

Nope, not for me. It never deletes anything i dont want it to. I just have most of my folders i know have a safe file but are being falsely flagged , added to the excluded list and it just work great. NOD32 stays in the background, does its thing. I use the Antivirus only, not the full security suite.

 

It looks like Outpost Firewall is no more?

Agnitum Support
http://www.agnitum.com/index.php
"In December 2015 Yandex acquired Agnitum software technology. These technologies will now be used to protect users of Yandex Browser. As a result of the acquisition, Agnitum terminates direct and partner sales of the Outpost product line. Agnitum will provide antivirus base updates, bug fixing and technical support until December 31, 2016."
https://browser.yandex.com/desktop/main/

The Wiki entries haven't been updated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yandex_Browser
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outpost_Firewall_Pro

 

@hmscott That's true, which is a shame because as firewalls go this one was advanced as hell. You could control everything at any level. It can still be used for a while - it's a firewall after all, not an antivirus so it does not depend on definition updates, but its lifetime is very limited.

 

Seems like the best products with the most functionality are often the first to go. The trend of technology companies pretending to know what is best for end users and limiting configuration options is really disgusting. But, Micro$loth set the stage for that to flourish with their latest and not-greatest W1ndoze OS X Malware Edition Gestapo tactics. Monkey see, monkey do. Long before that screwed up mentality took root at the Redmond Mafia, Crapafee Antivirus removed basic functionality like the ability for end users to set exclusions for files and folder.

 

I was surprised to see praise for TrendMicro and then I was not surprised to see that praise quickly fade. They haven't made a decent product since somewhere around 2007. Their HouseCall online scanner is a good secondary solution to a local scan in case your solution might have missed something but other than that, you might as well be using Norton or McAfee.

I hadn't run MBAM in like a year and ran it the other day - 2990 PUPs. How does that happen on a machine that was pretty much just used for Steam?! -_-

 

And let's not forget how they filled the pure AV only program with bloatware like reg cleaners/ speed optimizers, etc. A perfect combo to instantly destroy any healthy system

Bitdefender has done the same by the way.

The companies offering AV only are becoming less and less now

It's either bloat, or they throw in a bunch of icons in the main GUI that when you click on, only prompts you to upgrade to a higher suite, Norton Security, BullGuard, and Webroot SecureAnywhere does this.

I chose the AV only because that's all I need, stop throwing your garbage at me if I wanted a higher suite I would've bought it. very sad what we have come to...

I was the #1 person to bash Windows Defender and anyone who uses it. I used to call it Windows Pretender as it sits there doing nothing (protection wise, but it has improved so much recently and now with added PUP protection with a reg hack. Best of all it doesn't nag you about subscriptions, ads, special offers, or whatnot. It also doesn't have HTTP scanning which I personally dislike since it slows my internet down.

Windows Defender Is Becoming the Powerful Antivirus That Windows 10 Needs

 

The only thing that catches on my system are false positives.

It is great to cure a heavily infected system but IMHO, on a clean system, with a user not downloading/installing stuff left and right, it is not that great.

 

Hence why I said it was a good second line. There are times it catches things that mainstream solutions have missed, especially if that mainstream solution is just Windows Defender.

 

Use MB like me... On demand scans.

 

Currently I use:

McAfee VirusScan Enterprise (gotten from and recommended by my work)
Windows Firewall
Malwarebytes Antimalware Premium Lifetime License

<edit> Uninstalled McAfee (too many issues). Back to Avast Free, and just installed a nice firewall from Glasswire