A Good Free Antivirus Program

[Gez]

Gokuma said:

AVG has become a bloated PoS. I can no longer run it on this one laptop without it quickly overheating and shutting off.

You have to not install LinkScanner and such when installing AVG.

[Blargharghargh]

I ran my computer without anti-virus protection for something like a year and a half... My IE was set to allow the absolute minimum required to check my g-mail and everything else was done through another program (I luvs me some x-box quake).

However, my GF had a keylogger on the laptop I let her use, and that led me to discover the random trojan (always caused C:\Program Files\HP\Common to be up at startup, can't remember the name) that led me to http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/ as recommended by majorgeeks.com (if you have computer problems, hit up this site, bored IT professionals helping the retarded).

AVG did absolutely nothing to help, SuperAntiSpyware (I know, the name screams shite, but it's actually not bad) did nothing, had to download combofix, some rootkit thing I think was called rootrepeal, not 100% on all the steps. Anyways, they recommended COMODO, I installed it and it's actually pretty nice. Now, when I first started using it, there was a whole lot of "I don't know this program, is it safe?", and it was a little annoying (dual monitors make dialog boxes appear in weird places sometimes), especially when it asks you if a program is allowed to access input devices, or to allow you to print over the network, or if you really want to have those shared folders... But I have not had a single problem on either my computer or my laptop since I installed it.

TLDR: RAHR AVG = FAIL!!! Click the link for a paranoid firewall AV combo recommnded by a decent IT site.

[Maes]

Just using a "normal" antivirus and doing a spyware scan from time to time (e.g. once a week) with a tool like Spybot S&D, Malware Removal Tool or Ad Aware is enough.

Going without an antivirus on an internet enabled machine on which new programs are installed and ran, is just risky business, especially if all of the software is not exactly legit, and even more so if you're not the only person using it (e.g. your perverted teen brother may think nothing of clicking on that dialer.exe thing, or your naive little sister will install Smiler Central in no time).

And then again, even if you're the only person using the computer and you do everything by the book, you may make a mistake once or just fall victim to an unpredictable security flaw/drive-by download etc.

Just read this little horror story about an admin that "didn't believe in antivirus programs".

It's clearly a case of "even if you make no mistakes, you might still lose the battle (and the war)". I don't know why some people are actively trying to keep a machine antivirus free, even when it's clearly inappropriate to do so.

[Blargharghargh]

I'm not saying everyone should go av free, that's obviously dumb, just saying, you can do it, and relatively easily if you don't mind losing compatability with 90% of the internet (no java, activex, fonts/language packs, iframes, etc.), and you know what you're looking for. When is the last time you got a virus from an fserv, newsgroup, or ftp repository?Not to mention, websites that you know are safe can be added to your safe zone (or a custom one) so you can still watch flash videos and hit up foreign news sites and get software updates. It's just mroe hassle than most people are willing to go through, not to mention most people don't know what sites to trust either.

At least you don't have to patch windows to not run vbscript files anymore.

Maes
...your perverted teen brother may think nothing of clicking on that dialer.exe thing, or your naive little sister will install Smiler Central in no time...

Luckily my brother is older and more into computers than I could possibly ever be (apparently the only mac certified tech in 50 miles of here), I don't have a sister, my mom and dad don't use the interwebs, and my girlfriend only ever visits youtube, myspace, facebook, and gmail (the occasional other link, but exceptionally rarely, she hates computers). Not saying those sites are safe either, my last post specifically mentioned a trojan and keylogger combo I had to remove (only took 4 hours of scanning, registry searching/editing, and rebooting), I'm just saying, if you specifically stay under the radar (meaning you don't visit hugely popular sites {what site do you think a bored phreaker is going to mess with first? The site that barely manages 1000 hits a month, or the site that barely goes below 1000 hits an hour? Because if they're nub, likely they're using something akin to http://www.hackthissite.org/ or searching through their school's telnet access {I forgot to log out once and had the sysadmin pull me out of class to ask what I was doing, luckily I was just working on my AiS project {superconductors are fun :P} and logfiles are an LS away ^_-).

Or, you could just run some random linux distro and not worry about the majority of viruses on the internet... seeing as how windows system variables are worthless, and the vast majority of viruses are written with windows in mind.

Personally, I run malware bytes anti-malware, comodo, and I keep a copy of combofix and (relatively) new builds of MBAM, and COMODO on a CD-RW.

The way I look at it, if the data is important, back it up, otherwise, expect to lose it when you eventually have to reformat and reinstall your OS. I just don't see the big worry about viruses because you're bound to get one eventually, and chances are it's going to really screw your system up.

Know what pisses me off more than viruses? Corrupted HDDs, thank god for SpinRite, recovered about 80gigs of "lost" data because my hdd decided that it didn't want to read "write" anymore (see what I did there? Huh? HUH?! ... Yeah, sorry, it's late, I'm bored...) Sure, it took ~48 hours (seriously, run spinrite on an old box with a big hdd, come back a couple days later and lemme know how far it's gotten :P).

Anyways, back to a no AV machine; you CAN do it, but for most people it's not a good idea, like overclocking or making a beowulf cluster out of old 75mhz P1s. Sure, you've done something that most people couldn't do, but what the fuck is the point? It's one of those bizarre bragging rights that some people go for, like the guy who insists upon using only melee when doing sniper matches on Halo (more fun than you'd think actually <3 assassin).

EDIT: As to running programs from "less than reputable sources", if you're downloading warez, expect viruses.

Anyone know of any good online scanners? Just curious here (never used one).

[Maes]

What you're describing is essentially sandboxing and minute/draconian micromanagement. Easy to do for special-purpose boxes, but even then, sometimes at least an on-demand scanner is an added plus, and you can use those even when comp. resources are at a premium.

For general purpose, Internet enabled boxes not running Linux and where you can't really restrict access to safe levels, it's just preposterous thinking that you can get away without an on-line AV (and even then, it's still possible to infect a machine with annoying shit).

I never tested the efficacy of online scanners, but without low-level system access, I don't know how they could every hope to clean an active virus infection, or even deal with locked files. Hell, not even normal AVs can always successfully deal with those if they are already active in memory (unless they are so badly written that you can kill them via task manager). However, "well written" malware will use techniques such as rootkitting, double or even triple "guardian angel" processes, account-restricted locked files etc. so that the only way to actually remove them is to boot from a (preferentially Linux-based) image and delete the offending files...if you manage to find them, that is. SOme of these viruses manage to fuck up file security descriptors so badly that WinPE-based live environments can't delete them.

[myk]

Maes said:
It's clearly a case of "even if you make no mistakes, you might still lose the battle (and the war)". I don't know why some people are actively trying to keep a machine antivirus free, even when it's clearly inappropriate to do so.

Because the chance of a 1 in who-knows-what exploit is better than some bullshit running in the background or coming up when some tasks are done. It works, as the reports above express. I do have an "adware remover" installed, Spybot S&D (beside HijackThis), but it's for scanning and to "immunize" against bad IPs and domains.

Even without an AV, I'm more afraid of a hardware failure than any kind of exploit, to be honest. Not that I live in state of paranoia about it, just that it seems a more likely system pitfall :p

[Blargharghargh]

Maes said:

What you're describing is essentially sandboxing and minute/draconian micromanagement. Easy to do for special-purpose boxes, but even then, sometimes at least an on-demand scanner is an added plus, and you can use those even when comp. resources are at a premium.

[/B]

You're absolutely right, for quite a long time all I did on my main tower was softmod xboxes (yeah, a soldering gun in a smoker's hands = fxxd up chips), so the only time I had to connect to the internet was to boot up mIRC and WS FTP (yeah yeah, leech and cute are better, I just love the 3.1 style interface and blazingly loud train noises it makes when done with batch up/downloading). Well, and check my e-mail, but for the most part I was connecting to trusted sources through non-conventional means. I uninstalled practically everything because I was so wrapped up in xboxes. My desktop was 6 icons; mirc, ws ftp, MKULTRA (my computer), recycle bin, IE, and My Network Places. And again your right, even though I don't go to any sites on my machine, people on my network might not know how to protect their computer for crap, and a worm could EASILY rape my box with a sledgehammer because windows' idea of security is to just not talk about certain aspects of the OS, and hopefully ignorance will keep it safe.

The only reason I chimed in on the side of AV free computers is because I have people coming to me all the time (no, I'm not in IT, I'm kinda hippy in that I do stuff for my friends for free, so who do you think they call, geeksquad for $75/hour or me, for free?) my computer is being blah blah blah, and I've got the latest version of (insert AV here), whatever could it be? They get a computer, and it comes with some random pay-av, and they shell out for subscriptions, and they don't even protect them from the kinds of viruses they're going to be running into, and they bog the computer down because the users don't know enough about looking at the monitor in front of them to set a decent time for their scanner to auto-scan (I try to set scan times to 3-5 AM for myself, 1-2 AM for most other people). I tell everyone it doesn't matter how "safe" you're computer is, it isn't, so just make sure you keep your important files backed up, or have a hardcopy and forget the computer copy all together, it's not like printers are new technology or that ink is expensive (Toner, yes, ink, no) or that paper doesn't grow on trees.

Yes, I realize that there are many people who use their computers for business purposes, but if you use your comp for business, then you should really have a personal computer for surfing, gaming, media etc, and backup important files to a CD or DVD or hell, a zip disk (those've gotta be dirt cheap by now). Nothing wrong with throwing down on a game of pinball or solitaire when you finish a report early, or checking some youtube videos, but if you're going to be downloading pirated software or cracks or what have you, then you should really be using a seperate machine. Not to mention that illegal software on business machines not only get you in trouble with the law if you're discovered, but the IRS will slap you with fines and charges like you wouldn't believe. Sure, it's not so feasible for everyone to go out and buy two computers whenever they go shopping for a box, but it's like asking to have your cake and eat it too; I want a fast, secure, stable, compatible, easy to use computer that will let me get all the free porn, movies, music and games I can fit on the hard drive, and I don't want to ever pay to upgrade anything, and if I could leech off my neighbor's wi-fi, that'd be super too.

Most people should run an AV, and that AV should be as user-friendly as possible, while still allowing advanced users to get real work done, but in my experience, it doesn't matter if you run an AV or not, your box WILL get infected, and for most people who don't know what they're doing, at all (this coming from someone who really doesn't know what they're doing, I just pay attention to what's in front of me... and I like google... a lot...), having an AV is really more of an illusion of security, rather than real security. They go, "Oh, he just installed this really great new AV that he uses on his own PC, I must be safe, let's go hit up random ukranian crack sites for the 'super top-secret alpha release' of games that aren't even out of the funding pitch phase of development!" Really, these people deserve to have their computers fxxd every now and again to remind them why you don't trust eastern europe (nothing against eastern europe, I thought it was a little funny and went along with my ukraine reference).

TLDR = I agree, not running AV is bad, but, running an AV is bad for stupid people, because they're just going to screw their box up anyway.

[Maes]

Blargharghargh said:

I agree, not running AV is bad, but, running an AV is bad for stupid people, because they're just going to screw their box up anyway.

Fuck them, they are expendable.

[RestlessRodent]

ClamAV is free as in "free" and free.

EDIT: It's mostly UNIX, there may be a Windows version but I am not completely sure (to lazy to check).

[Maes]

Then again, one can just run DOS or OS/2 and stop worrying about the majority of modern viruses, and virtually 100% of "modern" malware (dialers, spyware, etc.) and only stick to the "good old" viruses like boot sector viruses, Michelangelo, Stoned, etc.

Heh, I wonder if they still air warnings about Michelangelo on the news the day(s) it's supposed to activate...I recall they did so until at least 2001-2002

[The Lag]

i use a combination of: AVG free, A2 Free, and Regcleaner to keep my computer in tip-top shape.

[Gez]

Maes said:

Then again, one can just run DOS or OS/2 and stop worrying about the majority of modern viruses

Use BeOS. Seriously. Nobody uses it, so nobody writes viruses for it.

[kristus]

My previous computer I ran for some 6 or 7 years without Virus protection and never got any viruses. And the computer I had before that I ran 6 years without Virus protection and were still never afflicted. Then I got a new computer about 2 years ago and basically got a virus the first thing I installed the operative system. Had to reformat to get rid of it. After that I paid the measly charge for Nod32 and were safe from virus "forever".

EDIT: Also use spyware blaster and Hostsman to lock up potential bad news web servers.

[CGC002]

I actually recommend using Firefox with the NoScript extension. If you're too lazy to decide what to allow/block, ClamWin is a good choice, as it doesn't use as much RAM as most other AV programs.