This is a helpful thread...if you need it. I have a couple computers and I used to use anti-viruses and spyware, but never had any problems or had them find anything so I stopped. That was a couple years ago and I havn't had any problems. I never get any viruses or spyware, so I think it has a lot to do with one's surfing habits. Or maybe I just never get any because I know how to get rid of them...


Moderator Note: The first 12 posts in this thread made up a tangent discussion in another thread. I have split them out into this new thread to keep the topics separate - Digerati

I used to use anti-viruses and spyware, but never had any problems or had them find anything so I stopped.

Or maybe your AV was blocking it in the first place. If you connect to the Internet, you need anti-malware. You are not smarter than the badguys. Your flaw is you assume the sites you visit are safe, and have not been compromised. That's a mistake.

Well, I'd be a little more worried if I actually had any problems.

Well, I'd be a little more worried if I actually had any problems.

Not good enough. Understand that a lot of malicious code is so well written the user does not see any problems. The computer appears to run just fine. But it may still be infected, and used by badguys for DDoS attacks, distribute spam, or just sit and wait. It is better to depend on good defenses, rather than good luck.

I agree with Digerati on this as well. I've had a few experiences where I've thought that my computer's running perfectly fine just to fine out later on that there were sneaky malware inside my computer.

Well, I agree that it is a great idea to keep your computer protected, and I've dealt with more viruses and malware than I'd like in the past, but over the past couple years have had no problems. My point was really not that defenses should just be abandoned, but that it actually seems more important to me to be aware of what one is doing to avoid viruses and the like. Doing that has been the most successful prevention method for me. I think most people run into problems when they are careless and click on things or download things that really don't know much about and then over the next couple weeks, or whenever, everything goes screwy. I have done this myself, tried to download some video enhancer program only to be rewarded with an incredibly evasive virus. I contected many forms of tech support which told me they had heard of the virus, it was a new one out, but no one had found a way to fix it yet so I would have to use my backup disk and reformat my computer. I think we've all done that before and know that it is just not a fun experience and one usually ends up losing data here or there. The virus refreshed windows about every five seconds so anything i could try to click would be cancled and reset and it was very slow because it would reload all of the startup programs every five seconds...which actually takes more than five seconds to load them...and task manager could kill the process but the virus would just restart it immediatly after and reset windows again...also I had an AV and Spyware protection program on there which couldn't run because of the reset every 5 seconds...so that basically disabled everything I could try to do to fix the problem. It took me about a week of trying to find ways around it to get it to glitch up and leave a screen up, i used a flash drive to open my pictures file which somehow froze the virus in the middle of a reset with my pictures folder being the only thing up, I used that and went into my C drive and after minimal digging found the source of the virus and deleted it, problem solved no thanks to tech or AV's. That is when I pretty much gave up on defending my computer with programs and just decided to be smart about what I did. I do pull out a AV once in a while and run it, but they never pick anything up. I shared this not only because of it representing my point, but it's also just a pretty good story of getting screwed with a virus and then fixing it. Trial and error for the win!

That is when I pretty much gave up on defending my computer with programs and just decided to be smart about what I did.

Prevention, where possible, is always a better strategy than dealing with eventual issues after the fact.

I do pull out a AV once in a while and run it, but they never pick anything up.

You would be best advised to have consistent preventative barriers in place because many infections are often simple mistakes or errors in judgment, bad luck (potentially avoidable script based drive-by-download) or recently and newly discovered and patched vulnerabilities.

If you aren't using 'Secunia PSI', you probably aren't being as smart as you think you are:

Download - Personal (PSI) - Vulnerability Scanning - Secunia.com

Furthermore, if you aren't using 'safe browsing' tools such as 'Linkscanner' (also part of AVG8) or 'SiteAdvisor' and 'Noscript' in Firefox (drive-by-download prevention), then that can continue to leave your system at risk.

I pretty much gave up on defending my computer with programs and just decided to be smart about what I did.

There's a word for that - Irony? Oxymoron? Contradiction? I am not doubting a computer can remain malware free without an AV. But that is like the driver who drives without using his seatbelt. That is a selfish decision by an irresponsible driver. Chances are, he will not be in an accident. But his poor judgment makes him a threat (deadly threat!) to others around him, especially his passengers! If there is an accident, perhaps because another idiot rolled through a stop sign, he will not remain behind the wheel to regain control quickly enough to prevent causing collateral damage, or worse. By you not using adequate protection, when your machine is connected to the Internet, it becomes a vulnerable target and you become a threat to the rest of us! Not cool! That is not being a responsible Internet user.

So regardless your cares about your identity or safety, or the wellbeing of your computer, now that you know you are a threat to others if you connect to a network that has Internet access, to "be smart with programs", you need to select a AV, and use it!
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I forgot about PSI, thanks for that Vince - did you notice in that link they finally went final with 1.0 just yesterday?

I agree too about "safe browsing" - fortunately IE7 also has an able Phishing Filter built-in, and I am happy to report the IE8 version, renamed "SmartScreen Filter" has even more anti-malware capabilities.

As far as prevention rather than dealing with it, I agree with the fact that not having problems is better than dealing with them, even if successful, but for me, I havn't had to deal with anything since I dropped my prevention.
Well, I ran 'Secunia PSI' and it told me that I was 100% secure on both of my computers so that contradicts what you guys are saying a bit, but I didn't look into what the program considers "secure" yet.
Also, it's not really irony or an oxymoron that if a program fails to perform it is discarded, that's a lot more like causation. As far as the setbelt comparison...I may just be naive, but it seems strange to me that others have more malware or viruses because of me when I have and send none myself.

Kinda off topic, but I ran into that Windows Virus 2009 on my Linux box. I hadn't done anything different or special. All of a sudden, I received the Popup window, We have detected a virus on your computer. Download Windows Antivirus 2009 to repair this problem. I went to close the popup and a download bar showed up in the popup instead. This happened Lightning fast. My heart skipped a beat, till I remembered I don't use exe. files in Linux (breathed a sigh of relief). I closed Firefox to stop the download. And Like VOP This said, installed No Scripts plugin in Firefox. Now I am generally a safe surfer, but I have found that just looking at a wrong site, not downloading anything, you can still get ambushed. So be careful folks.