My friends PC

A friend of mine at work just bought a brand new PC for his not that long ago and he said that he doesnt need any antivirus software on it as its not really necesarry also this goes the same with firewall and other security stuff as well.

He told me that he uses PC Cillins free online scan known as House Call say once every 3 weeks and that does it all for him. Like find and remove viruses etc.

My question here is does House Call actually remove viruses. I know it will scan for them but not sure about removing them.

 

It will clean them ( house call). But in my opinion you friends computer is on borrowed time not being protected. There is malware out there that can really damage your machine. And not being protected he will find it eventually.

 

No on board AV of any kind..... just plan NUTS!! Those who do not believe in at least the use of a Free AV, I refuse to help any more.

 

He's whistling past the graveyard.

 

Well 3 weeks are kinda long timeframe between scans. Parasitic viruses can cause some serious damage if they aren't detected at entry point (before they actually do anything). Tenga is the one of latest ones so they aren't completelly forgotten. Backdoors and trojans + passwod stealers can steal lots of stuff in 3 weeks. There is so many promotions and free editions that he can almost certanly find something for him. eTrust EZ Antivirus 7 is very light and easy to use. It should be enough. Updates daily. Other free ones like avast!, AVG and AntiVir should also be enough. It's better to have some form of on-access scanner thann just relying on on-demand scans.

 

That would make sense for a PC used off-line only, but here...does he keep his PC's ressources for viruses??