running without any AV - no antivirus! opinions?

[LuckMan212]

hello
i am looking for some honest, objective opinions on running my home computer (vista x64 sp1) without the extra burden, expense, and overhead of a traditional AV (nod32, kaspersky, norton etc). I have been a nod32 fan for about 5 years now, and it's been fine for me. But I think in those 5 years, it has only stopped 2-3 'attacks', and those were all web-based malicious .js attacks which would not have been able to do much damage to a vista x64 system running IE7 protected mode anyway.

So I am wondering if I am just throwing $$ away keep renewing these AV softwares year after year. Not to mention they cause various compatibility issues themselves often requiring waste of time to troubleshoot, maintain, tweak, configure and update just to keep your system functioning on a minimal level. I am sort of leaning towards just having a secure OS (64bit vista or win7), nice hardware firewall (ddwrt or tomato), be careful where I surf and be vigilant about running on-demand scans with free tools like MalwareBytes AntiMalware and SuperAntiSpyware.

The security software market to me seems every day more and more a joke, I mean there are hundreds of products out there now, with little to no "honest" reviews, benchmarks, etc. Companies pop up daily with a new whiz-bang product or fancy anti-heuristic-hypervisor-HIPS-a-licious technology that nobody really understands, only to disappear months later leaving customers hanging. (anybody remember DiamondCS??) I am just fed up with it.

what are your guys thoughts?

[Hiker]

With free programs like Avira and Avast I don't know why you'd take a chance. I guess if you had frequent back-ups it would be OK.

[LuckMan212]

what is the best on-demand AV scanner these days?
I am a fan of SuperAntiSpyware, MBAM, and the good ol' Spybot S&D for malware, but I am not familiar with On-demand AV scanners.
Are there any decent ones with good detect rate and low FPs?

[Page42]

Originally Posted by LuckMan212

So I am wondering if I am just throwing $$ away keep renewing these AV softwares year after year. Not to mention they cause various compatibility issues themselves often requiring waste of time to troubleshoot, maintain, tweak, configure and update just to keep your system functioning on a minimal level. I am sort of leaning towards just having a secure OS (64bit vista or win7), nice hardware firewall (ddwrt or tomato), be careful where I surf and be vigilant about running on-demand scans with free tools like MalwareBytes AntiMalware and SuperAntiSpyware.

You seem to have skipped over the free products out there that are just as good or better than the paid variety. I fattened the Symantec coffers for about 8-10 years before pulling the plug on them and going with FREE avast!4 Home Edition. What a great move that was! It's been a year and a half of comfort and joy, I'm telling you. Take a solid look at avast! You could even add Avira AntiVir Personal without the Guard and use it as an on-demand FREE scanner. ThreatFire is another free tool. And the three programs I just mentioned all coexist nicely on my machines. Good Luck.

[Hiker]

Originally Posted by LuckMan212

what is the best on-demand AV scanner these days?
I am a fan of SuperAntiSpyware, MBAM, and the good ol' Spybot S&D for malware, but I am not familiar with On-demand AV scanners.
Are there any decent ones with good detect rate and low FPs?

To be honest I'm not sure about using Avast only on demand but you can with Avira by disabling AntiVir Guard right clicking on the tray icon. Some complain about false positives, but I personally haven't had that problem. It's also always rated at the top.

The only drawback for the free version, if you want to call it that, is a pop ad during updates. It can be disabled following these directions.

http://www.elitekiller.com/disable_antivir_nag.htm

The above link also has the directions to disable the start up slash screen,

[icr]

Avast is good free AV
use SAS,MBAM provides good protection to ur pc
u may also try this software Returnil
http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/comparison.htm

AVG or Avast - both have a good antivirus/antispyware engine!

But as you say: I also had a lot of AV programs in the past but I hardly ever saw any of them in action

Originally Posted by LuckMan212

Companies pop up daily with a new whiz-bang product or fancy anti-heuristic-hypervisor-HIPS-a-licious technology that nobody really understands

[virtumonde]

Use DR Web cure it.No installation,no messin up with the registry.

[rdsu]

@LuckMan212,

I completely understand you

After using Linux as my main OS, for more than one year, I just realized that we can perfectly can go "without" all these security programs.
We just have to use the common sense and stay way from the ways that can compromise our privacy and security.

Even for those that "know" how to stay way from these treats, we are still human beings that makes mistakes, and Windows is far from being perfect OS, so we need something that help us on that job.

We don't need to have hundreds of security programs, like some users of this forum use, to protect or check our system, just a few to complement and help our common sense…

[Peter2150]

First with Moderator hat on. Lets not turn this thread into an A Vs B. You all know what will happen. This thread is about not using an AV.


Having said that, I run without any Antivirus or in fact any Anti anything. I rely heavily on Sandboxie, and that is a catch for Luckman. No 64bit version, nor will there be one.

Pete

[Baz_kasp]

Originally Posted by Peter2150

First with Moderator hat on. Lets not turn this thread into an A Vs B. You all know what will happen. This thread is about not using an AV.


Having said that, I run without any Antivirus or in fact any Anti anything. I rely heavily on Sandboxie, and that is a catch for Luckman. No 64bit version, nor will there be one.

Pete

Do you run all of your "normal" browsing in sandboxie?


Technically....if "something" decided to launch in your sandbox...it do anything with the data inside the sandbox (e.g. your wilders login for example) or even outside of the sandbox...e.g. passwords for thunderbird,outlook, ftp clients, websites etc etc.... which is why I think sandboxes are fine as prevention of file infection but not protection for your data from threats such as password stealers for example.

[ThunderZ]

Originally Posted by Baz_kasp

Do you run all of your "normal" browsing in sandboxie?


Technically....if "something" decided to launch in your sandbox...it do anything with the data inside the sandbox (e.g. your wilders login for example) or even outside of the sandbox...e.g. passwords for thunderbird,outlook, ftp clients, websites etc etc.... which is why I think sandboxes are fine as prevention of file infection but not protection for your data from threats such as password stealers for example.

You would have to be very mindful of just what you were doing, where you were browsing during any one session. But actually I like the idea of this approach. Have finally gathered enough parts to piece together a "break me" PC. A bit resource deprived so I may give the Sandboxie only approach a try.

Thanks Peter2150. Nice Mod hat by the way.

[virtumonde]

Originally Posted by Baz_kasp

Do you run all of your "normal" browsing in sandboxie?


Technically....if "something" decided to launch in your sandbox...it do anything with the data inside the sandbox (e.g. your wilders login for example) or even outside of the sandbox...e.g. passwords for thunderbird,outlook, ftp clients, websites etc etc.... which is why I think sandboxes are fine as prevention of file infection but not protection for your data from threats such as password stealers for example.

You can configure by folder path,or simply by program name what can acces the internet in a certain sandbox.

[Baz_kasp]

Originally Posted by ThunderZ

You would have to be very mindful of just what you were doing, where you were browsing during any one session. But actually I like the idea of this approach. Have finally gathered enough parts to piece together a "break me" PC. A bit resource deprived so I may give the Sandboxie only approach a try.

Thanks Peter2150. Nice Mod hat by the way.

Can be browsing any one of your normal sites and get infected. For example, yesterday I came across a poker blog, online clothes shop and forum that had all been comprimised with malicious scripts and were silently downloading pinch password stealers to the visitors. It's an unseen jungle

[ThunderZ]

Originally Posted by Baz_kasp

Can be browsing any one of your normal sites and get infected. For example, yesterday I came across a poker blog, online clothes shop and forum that had all been comprimised with malicious scripts and were silently downloading pinch password stealers to the visitors. It's an unseen jungle

Agreed. That is why you must mindful of your particular surfing session. Example; If I were going to make an online purchase or log into my bank site I would make sure it was the only thing I did from within that session. If a site is compromised, depending on how, no amount\type of security programs on your PC will protect your private information.

I fear we are beginning to drift off topic though. Sorry to the OP.

[LuckMan212]

I'm curious why there is not any Sandboxie or similar product for 64-bit OS? Is this some sort of technical limitation? sorry for my ignorance. I am a registered user of Ilya's DefenseWall HIPS and I found it to be an excellent product-- unfortunately I have been unable to use it since moving to a 64bit OS. Truthfully I am quite surprised by how slowly the migration towards 64-bit has been going in general-- especially considering the improved security, performance and most importantly the ability to use >4GB RAM.

[Kerodo]

I don't know the technical details, but x64 is a whole other ballgame apparently, and it would appear to be quite difficult for developers to write any HIPS or related app for x64.

I understand your desire to lighten up and also spend less, but I think in your case I'd go ahead and at least run Avira, or use it on-demand only perhaps, there is the free version, and it is quite good. No AV means a small chance of something going unseen I suppose. I have been at that point too, but I always seem to end up putting something on. Right now on Vista x64 I use Avast, and that's it.

On any new PC, the "overhead" of a free AV should be near zero.

[LuckMan212]

I removed NOD32 and even though it is light on resources, my PC "feels" snappier already. I may wait for avast 5.0 and try that. I will probably try NOD32 v4 as well when it is released. But for now I will probably just stick to on-demand scans with MBAM, SpyBot S&D, and SaS.

[khagaroth]

I would say that the main problem with x64 isn't the difficulty of development, but that stupid requirement for driver signing that you have to pay for.

[dr pan k]

your problem is not on the net, since u can easily use adblock and noscript but on usb viruses or when downloading songs n stuff from p2p. why dont u try eset v4? its for free as its beta and works pretty well (for being a beta that is).
SAS works great if combined with cureit on demand

[farmerlee]

Originally Posted by LuckMan212

I'm curious why there is not any Sandboxie or similar product for 64-bit OS? Is this some sort of technical limitation? sorry for my ignorance. I am a registered user of Ilya's DefenseWall HIPS and I found it to be an excellent product-- unfortunately I have been unable to use it since moving to a 64bit OS. Truthfully I am quite surprised by how slowly the migration towards 64-bit has been going in general-- especially considering the improved security, performance and most importantly the ability to use >4GB RAM.

I believe its due to patchguard which is the kernel protection feature found in vista x64. As a vista 64 user i just use virtualization to create my own sandbox type environment. Its no where near as convenient or light as sandboxie but it works great.

[tonyseeking]

Originally Posted by LuckMan212

hello
i am looking for some honest, objective opinions on running my home computer (vista x64 sp1) without the extra burden, expense, and overhead of a traditional AV (nod32, kaspersky, norton etc)....

It is a good way if you only download stuff from well known and reputable sources. And then once per week run the NOD32 and Kaspersky FREE Online Scan.

[Dogbiscuit]

LUA + SRP.

[LuckMan212]

OK, I know LUA=Limited User Account, but what's SRP?

[Pseudo]

Originally Posted by LuckMan212

OK, I know LUA=Limited User Account, but what's SRP?

Software Restriction Policy. It's a Windows feature first introduced in XP Pro.