Why can't we just get an AV these days?

Discussion in 'other anti-virus software' started by DoctorPC, Mar 12, 2014.

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  1. guest

    guest Guest

    Well, the thing about MBAM is:
    - It has no potential rival.
    - Marketing wordings which makes people think an anti-virus and an anti-malware are different, and they think they need both.
    - It is very effective in detecting and removing PUPs and rogues, which from what I've seen, is what the common case of today's infections. People are not getting infected with worms anymore these days.

    Now about the AV, the problem with that is pure blacklisting method is way too inefficient, while OTOH we scare people off with the stories of magical infections. Of course the vendors will add something more to their products, that's normal if you view it from a business point-of-view. What differs this condition is the stuff they add:
    - An anti-executable component in an AV is fine.
    - A sandbox component in an AV is fine.
    - A registry cleaner in an AV is NOT fine.

    And speaking of registry cleaners/PC optimizer features in some AVs, I sincerely don't understand the point of adding those features in the party. Common folks won't be using it, but aren't their products mainly aimed towards common folks? Not to mention that it has nothing to do with proactive protection of ITW malware to begin with. o_O
     
  2. mattdocs12345

    mattdocs12345 Registered Member

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    Probably the only one that I would really pay for is ESET. Unfortuntely they are a bit too expansive for my taste. But I guess you get what you pay for.
     
  3. justenough

    justenough Registered Member

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  4. zfactor

    zfactor Registered Member

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    agree when newegg or anyone else puts the smart security down to like 20$ or sometimes less (i have bought eset ess for as little as 12$ 3pc version at newegg) i always grab the max allowed. with newegg this is usually 5 boxes. i have a good reserve on hand for a long while. and i add a few more here and there. i think i have maybe 23 boxed eset's now. but ill have to use 8 of those coming up soon. and then ill buy a few more when newegg has them on sale. i do the same for webroot, avira, etc etc.
     
  5. Behold Eck

    Behold Eck Registered Member

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    Unthreat AV Free.
     
  6. twl845

    twl845 Registered Member

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    I have been contemplating this for a few months, and this thread has made me take the step and replace my existing AV with Emsisoft Anti-Malware. The first thing I noticed was the lack of pop ups, and advertising. Just an AV. I'm checking it out for 30 days, and will make my decision. So far I like it.:cool:
     
  7. mattdocs12345

    mattdocs12345 Registered Member

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    I guess I have to watch sales more often. Might use ESET in the future on my family computers. The downside is yearly renewals. I need something that will last for 3-5 years and these are not usually on sale.
     
  8. Eggnog

    Eggnog Registered Member

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    I dumped Avast because of the chronic ads and up-sell attempts, not to mention that it always wants to install Chrome and other stuff on your PC. My license is good until November but I don't care.

    I've got Bitdefender AV now, and haven't seen an ad yet. Of course, some of the features are not useable because they go with the full suite, but at least it isn't trying to sell me something every time I turn around.

    Emsisoft is definitely on my radar. I just want what I paid for. I don't want to buy something that's just a vehicle to up-sell me.
     
  9. twl845

    twl845 Registered Member

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    So far I did a quick scan on EAM that took a few minutes, and then did the Smart scan that took a half hour. I haven't done the Deep scan yet. I like how the whole thing is configured. It's not like Avast where you have to hunt to find things.
     
  10. SweX

    SweX Registered Member

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    Sounds like a plan. Since you're not really new to ESET you already know what to expect and how it works if you go for it.

    Not a downside at all, the way I see it is that you pay for a service and not really a product, as if ESET would release a new "product" version during the license period you are free to upgrade to the new version for free. You may install the AV like a product but it works more like a sub service. With the money the company can keep development going and put money into research and improve the product etc etc.

    But then I am not a fan of the lifetime license business model as products using them tend to die off rather than the developer start with a yearly fee to keep development going. Wich is a shame as it's often great products that dies.

    Luckily Malwarebytes switched to the yearly license model before it was too late. They are no longer a small company that can stay alive on the lifetime model.

    That's easy, if you buy a 3 year license it will last 3 years :D
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2014
  11. DoctorPC

    DoctorPC Banned

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    Run IMMUNET3 if you want a super-lite, effective, BASIC antivirus product without any frills.

    I'm loving how light it is, and the Cloud Heuristics+Cloud Machine Learning provides more than enough protection when run alongside MBAM/Chica. It's fast, light, 13mb of ram, and unobtrusive with no bloated nonsense. NO reason to pay for it, as all that provides is Tetra(BD) engine for off-internet scanning, which I don't care about.

    Good to see Immunet sticking to the basics. Also happy to hear Emsisoft is sticking to the basics as well.. Great companies.
     
  12. ance

    ance formerly: fmon

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    Well done, I replaced Avast on several computer by other free AV without all the junk. :)
     
  13. 031

    031 Registered Member

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    Another funny thing is size of antivirus (both the installer and the installed product) is getting bigger and bigger, thanks to those unnecessary add-ons. Many antiviruses have 300~400 mb installers and some takes even more than 1 GB after installation. After few years antiviruses will require more space than average linux distribution :D :D
     
  14. Yes but have you ever seen stopping something (okay it informs about installations, but so does Windows Reliability Monitor)?
     
  15. dogbite

    dogbite Registered Member

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    The IT guy of my company told me that he run a spare owned PC without any AV for a couple of years. He was not too worried to get infected there, because he did not have important stuff in there. Guess what? He did not get infected at all.
    This is for sure a limited example, does not count on statistics, but I wonder how much of this crap (or if this crap) is really needed.
     
  16. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    Yes, I also have few friend that don't run any real-time AV and never get infected. When I was trying to infect my computer on purpose (was testing AV + HIPS + sandbox security setup) I couldn't find malware for testing. Well known sites that host malware or malware samples on those sites were usually blacklisted by AV. I never found zero day or other ITW samples that would bypass AV, so I could test other security layers. Now I use only AV but it never prevents any intrusion. I guess I would be well without it also.

    hqsec
     
  17. Gullible Jones

    Gullible Jones Registered Member

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    No, they're not strictly necessary, but that doesn't mean they're not useful. Modern AV suites typically include HTTP filtering and such, which can block a surprising number of attacks. I happen to dislike all such software conceptually (c.f. "enumerating badness" as Marcus Ranum puts it) but it can be effective.
     
  18. act8192

    act8192 Registered Member

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    "Enumerating badness" is beginning to get to me also, ever since I saw the link in noone_particular's signature few weeks back.
    Seriously considering ditching AV, even though it's small free-avast (with at this point unacceptable amount of sales pitches), and using just my firewall and SSM again.
     
  19. DoctorPC

    DoctorPC Banned

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    The bigger problem IMO are the PUP's. My god.. I've seen machines grinding down to a halt with so many pups, and pup-extras. I haven't actually seen a 'true' Virus/Trojan in quite some time on a pretty significant number of computers I deal with. Primary reason I think is web blacklisting is so fast, and so effective anyone pushing malware is blacklisted extremely quickly.

    My home security setup focuses on blacklisting domains, and HTTP/S filtration. As I explained elsewhere, ALL HTTP/HTTPS traffic here goes through NINE different Malware Databases with what I believe is close to 2 billion IP addresses! MalwareDNS Checker, Security Appliance (COMMTouch), MBAM Web Filter, Adblock Malware Filter, Adguard (Malware, Phishing x5 databases), Immunet ETHOS/SPEROS (or whatever AV/AT).

    I assume I could do without an AV entirely. Which is why Immunet is now serving the purchase of having 'something' AV related. I assume my HTTP/S+Malware Domain blocking combined with Appguard are more than enough.
     
  20. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    It depends on the user. I often run my computers without antivirus software, and even then, it is very rare to get an infection. But, that is because I know hot to avoid getting infected. I only install software if it is something I specifically choose to download. For example if a website wants me to download and install software or install an addon to view an online video, I din't install the software or the addon. Also, I don't open attachments from random emails.

    However, the average PC user will end up opening something they shouldn't and get infected. So, while I can have no real time protection installed, and visit hundreds of websites (even unsafe ones) and download lots of software without getting infected, this is not something that I recommend.
     
  21. RejZoR

    RejZoR Lurker

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    When you're dealing with money on systems, i'm not leaving anything to a chance.
     
  22. Gullible Jones

    Gullible Jones Registered Member

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    In that case you're very much out of luck, because all security boils down to risk management.
     
  23. Noob

    Noob Registered Member

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    A Deep Scan on my desktop usually takes around 40 minutes with 224GB of files. Thats with all options ticked except "Only scan files with the following extension".
    My CPU is an Intel Q8200, 320GB Samsung HDD from 2008 and 8GB of Ram. :D
     
  24. Dhelpvhuen

    Dhelpvhuen Registered Member

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    Hello there, I thought I also add my reason why I stopped using WSA. Mirroring user roger_m's issue as well. I was on the fence about that. Sometimes it irks me, when I notice certain exes files are not in their directories, other times I couldn't be bothered.

    What drove me off the cliff to uninstall the program, was it appeared it was scanning my web traffic and spiking in memory usage. I'm a a heavy browser user, so for instance a typical browsing session, I'll have my browser (Chrome/Firefox) with 40+ tabs open. Even with so many tabs opened, my CPU memory usage never even reaches close to 50%. With Webroot doing its thing, I was getting above 80%. The moment I close my browser, it drops to normality. I looked around in the settings to find if there was some option to turn whatever that was on = off, when I couldn't well I uninstalled it.
     
  25. Banzi

    Banzi Registered Member

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    It is sad that the AV programs are getting more bloated with IMO useless features.

    All I want from a AV is that will check web traffic & files on HDD, USB sticks etc, I don't need all the bells & whistles they seem to keep adding.

    Avast used to be the one I recommended to family & friends but after some really bad FP's (2 or 3 times it removed system files that were ok or deleted documents etc) & the amount of calls asking for help & why does it install Chrome when updating etc I stopped recommending it.

    Only 1 person I know was still using it but wanted it removed after it started spamming him with ads.
     
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