Do you ever run a computer without an antivirus and/or firewall?

[bladedanny]

As the title suggests really. Do you? If so why and if not, why not?

 

I'm just after peoples opinions.

 

Thanks,

 

Dan

[LosOjos]

No, and I can't think of a single good reason to do so... Why on earth would you choose to open up a PC to security attacks?

[AshMan91]

Bit of a ridiculous idea if you ask me. I don't see why you would run a PC without either of them?

[jamesb]

Yep, absolutely.

 

I have a small network at home with no antivirus or firewall.

 

Admittedly there's also no connectivity to the outside world whatsoever from it.

 

I use it as a playground environment.

[bladedanny]

I'm glad these are the views of IT Professionals. My Views are exactly the same and I would never run a PC (work or home) without an antivirus or firewall.

The reason I asked this question is because on a local forum related to computers/tech (but aimed at home users) people 'claiming' to be clued up in IT are offering the advice to home users not to run antiviruses or firewalls as they slow your computer down and you don't really need them. When I pointed this out otherwise I got shouted down for doing so.

 

I just simply wanted to make sure I was correct.

 

Thanks,

 

Dan

[Rydra]

I haven't run an AV/Firewall package in years on my home PC. it just caused constant issues and problems, blocking stuff i wanted, taking up system resources. I let it run a full scan once every week or two, then turn it off again.

 

In 5 years I've had no attacks, viruses or troubles. The days of people hacking into your PC via unprotected ports is mostly a thing of the past, noone does it anymore, and if they did it would just be to work out how best to send you more spam mails about male enhancement or something.

 

I have a hardware firewall built into my router, and that is more than enough for me. I don't DL anything I don't recognise and/or trust from anyone, anywhere. And my irregular AV scans haven't turned up a virus in years, the last one it flagged was a false alarm, deciding a mIRC installer i've had for 8 years was a virus created 2 years ago!

 

The need to keep Antivirus system's running 24/7 is, in my mind for peace of mind for those who want to download whatever they like or have no clue what they're doing. If you are careful with what you DL, and what sites you visit, and trust those who use your machine (aka, yourself and noone else) you should be fine.

[bladedanny]

Yep, absolutely.

 

I have a small network at home with no antivirus or firewall.

 

Admittedly there's also no connectivity to the outside world whatsoever from it.

 

I use it as a playground environment.

 

Well that doesn't count

[bladedanny]

I haven't run an AV/Firewall package in years on my home PC. it just caused constant issues and problems, blocking stuff i wanted, taking up system resources. I let it run a full scan once every week or two, then turn it off again.

 

In 5 years I've had no attacks, viruses or troubles. The days of people hacking into your PC via unprotected ports is mostly a thing of the past, noone does it anymore, and if they did it would just be to work out how best to send you more spam mails about male enhancement or something.

 

I have a hardware firewall built into my router, and that is more than enough for me. I don't DL anything I don't recognise and/or trust from anyone, anywhere. And my irregular AV scans haven't turned up a virus in years, the last one it flagged was a false alarm, deciding a mIRC installer i've had for 8 years was a virus created 2 years ago!

 

The need to keep Antivirus system's running 24/7 is, in my mind for peace of mind for those who want to download whatever they like or have no clue what they're doing. If you are careful with what you DL, and what sites you visit, and trust those who use your machine you should be fine.

 

Fair enough. I guess i'll let the comments on the other forum slide.

[NikChillin]

What about Ubuntu or other Linux stuff? They always boast being more secure.

[bladedanny]

What about Ubuntu or other Linux stuff? They always boast being more secure.

 

Sorry I should have mentioned, it's a windows based forum.

[Rydra]

I will however, always recommend a normal home user runs AV/firewall. My wife's laptop has one, and I wouldn't dream of removing it....

 

Why? Because I don't trust her to always click/download the right thing! And most home users will not click the right things. And it will save me a lot of time and hassle knowing she's 90% safe from idiotic virus attacks.

[CHR1S]

I didn't use AV for a long while, never had any issues when it was just me on the PC behind a decent firewall, once other people started using it (teenage relatives) it got AV right away. Amazingly, that's when the viruses started appearing!

 

I did occasionally do a housecall/hijack this to put my mind at ease but it was only ever minor tracking cookies etc.

[MK-2]

Rydra, you say you haven't been attacked or compromised in years, but honestly, how do you know?

Yes you have a hardware firewall in the router, but say I somehow managed to get past that, how would you know if I am now doing something on your PC?

 

I only ask because a few years ago I wiped my PC, started to download the software to reinstall and one site had been compromised so I ended up downloading a legit piece of software that was packed with a trojan too. It was only after installing some anti virus software that it picked up the files or I would have been oblivious. To go on the assumption that if you use trusted sites and trusted downloads is still a bit risky to be honest.

[CHR1S]

To go on the assumption that if you use trusted sites and trusted downloads is still a bit risky to be honest.

 

And that's why I run AV now regardless

[rolfea]

I'm not a huge Nix user, so this could be a really stupid question, but is OS like Ubuntu etc less prone to virus', like OS X is less prone to virus'?

[Rydra]

I run AV scans from Kaspersky, which I have installed but not running most of the time once every few weeks, at minimum once a month. It hasn't picked up anything in years.

 

I don't really do torrenting except for the odd TV episode i've missed (i missed house a couple weeks ago as I was out for the evening!), and any other software I don't install updates or new stuff immediately, I learn from Sims.net, always wait a few weeks before installing stuff in case of bugs that break more important things!

 

Viruses only really come in one way: I've clicked on something I shouldn't have. And nowadays, the most malicious of viruses are these 'fake' virus/AV cleaning ones, which from my experience even the best AV systems don't pickup on.

 

I teach the staff here if they ever get a window up they don't like/want, and I am not a phonecall away, do not click any grey buttons within it. Click the X's in the corner, press Alt+F4, or simply log off the PC if neither of those are available and they are unsure. Clicking things is what causes viruses!

 

Lastly, I'm a stay at home nerd who plays one of 2 or 3 MMO's, I have about 12 different password sets, all of which are unique within a set area (So no two Work PW are the same, no two game PW are the same etc etc.) I don't have enough money in an account to worry about, don't own a credit card, and rarely buy stuff over the internet, I'm a cash/card man. I like looking at things before buying, and don't like stuff being delivered if I can avoid it.

 

I'm not 100% safe, but if any of these people REALLY want my credit card details, or my game login's, a simple home AV is not going to stop them if they can still get past a hardware firewall, install a trojan without my knowledge, then run password scanners, steal my email/forum PW, then crack the PW's to my games, and the 4 seperate details/passwords required to get into my online banking

[powdarrmonkey]

I'm not a huge Nix user, so this could be a really stupid question, but is OS like Ubuntu etc less prone to virus', like OS X is less prone to virus'?

 

 

The only reason they are 'less prone' is that nobody can be bothered to target a minority of users when they have so many Windows noobs to choose from. Why struggle to terrify the 5% of (considerably more experienced) *nix users into buying your fake anti-virus software when you can get the other 90% to do it with a kit worm?

 

The few worms that are in the wild for *nix systems are many, many times more destructive, and anybody that thinks they're invulnerable because they don't use Windows is just plain stupid.

 

(tip: for sensible versions of Ubuntu it's "apt-get install clamav clamav-freshclam clamtk rkhunter")

Edited November 2, 2010 by powdarrmonkey

[selu]

if you run steadystate deepfreeze timegate etc why use antivirus as well because even if you get a virus you could just reboot your computer to fix it. In fact if you want to test a virus to see what it does then this is a good way to do it.

If you run an internet cafe or a public pc system or primary school without a domain etc just to access internet services etc why would you want bloatware antivirus to manage all you need is a pc with any of the above software installed to do this. Computer broken reboot it to fix no virus can infect a read only system use a pen drive to save docs lock c:\ no virus no antivirus no updates no problems this is the only way i would set up a pc running no antivirus.

[jamesb]

I'm not a huge Nix user, so this could be a really stupid question, but is OS like Ubuntu etc less prone to virus', like OS X is less prone to virus'?

 

No, there are less viruses around for Linux, and the majority are targetted at Windows.

 

There is some ground to the claim that Linux is inherently more secure, but the main reason it's less 'prone' is the lack of targetting by virus writers.

[Sirbendy]

I run neither on my desktop. Well, not in the main use environments. Not much point as they're VMs with snapshots! The Host OS has AV. Incoming router has SPI. Virtuals get nothing at all, as it's pretty pointless..

[mattx]

As the title suggests really. Do you? If so why and if not, why not?

 

I'm just after peoples opinions.

 

Thanks,

 

Dan

 

Yep - got a few at home with no AV on at all. Never once got a nasty on any of them and they all run XP and all are on the internet.

[powdarrmonkey]

if you run steadystate deepfreeze timegate etc why use antivirus as well because even if you get a virus you could just reboot your computer to fix it. In fact if you want to test a virus to see what it does then this is a good way to do it.

 

That takes no account of the immediate payload: keylogging, spam broadcasting, and so on can all take place free as you like until you next reboot.

[Elison]

yes, Unfortunately I have. And would like to say that will never repeat this experiment again. Almost all my data was failed becouse of viruses I got from the Internet. Actually I dont remember why I didnt install any antivirus...Maybe just forgot...But lesson was succeed. Now at home I use Avast antivirus. Its free and has home edition version. So rather comfortable for me. Moreover I try to scan the system with AVZ. It is free also. I understand that no one antivirus can protect your PC totally. Any antivirus has its own weak points. That is why I try to use both of them.

On my work PC I use Kaspersky. To my mind it has the most ideal system of protection....But it isnt ideal still...

And of course firewall on work PC.

[selu]

True but if you noticed a slowdown in what you were doing on your computer you would just reboot. No antivirus is flawless keylogging, spam broadcasting, can all happen with antivirus running. Its all about the user experiance no av = fast pc reboot to fix means a monkey can fix it no need for geeks onsite.

[Elison]

the best protection of your pc is you...You have to understand how many viruses are in the INternet. And nowadays they are not only on porn sites how it used to be. Now you can catch it anywhere. One of my colleagues got it from his provider official website 2 weeks again. So I think that the supplemental plug ins in your browser are necessary. Like No Scripts in FF and so on.