Antivirus is 'completely wasted money'
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Sheer luck. Or perhaps they don't get by and are already infected with a keylogger, spambot or anything else from the wide range of malware. It's no longer the simple viri that infect executables and delete system-critical files on every 5th of july. Nowadays, the goal of this software is not to be noticed. Can you really say that you know what your machine does whenever the disk LED lites up or your network connection shows traffic? Perhaps anti-virus software developers don't know either in some cases, but I, for my part, know that they know a lot more about how malware works than I do, so I try to keep my signatures up-to-date.
Regards, mav -- Black holes are the places where God divided by 0...
mav.northwind wrote:
Can you really say that you know what your machine does whenever the disk LED lites up or your network connection shows traffic? Perhaps anti-virus software developers don't know either in some cases, but I, for my part, know that they know a lot more about how malware works than I do, so I try to keep my signatures up-to-date.
No offense mav, but that sounds a lot like superstition to me...
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
And you're firmly in the same category.
Rubbish. Nobody is a dumbass just because he runs an antivirus. Unless, of course, it's Norton. :rolleyes:
Cheers, Vikram.
The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Nobody is a dumbass just because he runs an antivirus.
Nobody is a dumbass just because he knocks on wood whenever he sees a black cat. Still, that fact alone doesn't exactly say much of a person's understanding...
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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mav.northwind wrote:
If you don't use antivirus software then you must be either quite naive or rather ignorant.
Then explain how many techies get by fine without anti-virus.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
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Our anti-virus isn't to protect us. It's to protect the masses. Try educating 9,000+ users about the nuances that make viruses stand out. Now do that in an environment that had a bit of turnover in the ranks.
Yup, that is exactly what I am saying. For people who are not street-smart give them anti-virus, the rest of us can cope.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
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http://news.zdnet.com/2424-1009_22-202297.html[^] "A better way of dealing with the unknown is to use whitelists--where only authorized or approved software can execute" I don't think it is so easy to do, but probably is the only way to go. jhaga
How to earn $100/month.
I'm a techie and I am careful, but I am really struggling to see what he is on about. If my anti virus stops me having to go through the said routine of reinstalling my machine because of something which has got at my machine, then the AV has paid for itself. Put simply, I can earn more than the price of my AV subscription in the time it would take to rejig my machine. It short this is utter hogwash. I agree that he has some points about the 'rights' to execute software but to just flat out say that anti-virus is a waste of money is ridiculous. So I'll turn off my AV and then be open to all the 'known' threats as well as the unknown ones. Just ridiculous!!!
The only thing unpredictable about me is just how predictable I'm going to be.
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Rajesh R Subramanian wrote:
Antivirus has worked for me and many others
This is only appropriate for techies but I haven't used an anti-virus in years now and most of my work-mates don't either. We do have a good firewall and we do keep our software patched though. The rest of our "anti-virus" system involves not clicking bad links, not opening dodgy executable or executing unknown scripts. Common sense in other words (to techies.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
I use anti virus software and do the same as you, but with malicious content making it's way onto ad networks, this crap is making it's way onto more and more legitimate sites.
In this paper, we provide a detailed study of the pervasiveness of so-called drive-by downloads on the Internet. Drive-by downloads are caused by URLs that attempt to exploit their visitors and cause malware to be installed and run automatically. Our analysis of billions of URLs over a 10 month period shows that a non-trivial amount, of over 3 million malicious URLs, initiate drive-by downloads. An even more troubling finding is that approximately 1.3% of the incoming search queries to Google’s search engine returned at least one URL labeled as malicious in the results page.
On top of that, some of these sites are updating their binaries every hour making signature based av nearly useless for those sites. [edit]Not really a response to your statement, but just a general this stuff is really starting to suck for everybody, and with exploits embedded in flash, and dynamically obfuscated javascript with interaction, location and time based activation it's bad for everyone.[/edit] More info here: All your iFrames point to us[^]
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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I am not working for a small company and so I cannot decide if or not to have an antivirus in my computer at work place. Using an antivirus simply does not have anything to do with being a techie. I believe that I am techie enough, but I will want to run an antivirus too. It is just a matter of individual priorities.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero .·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·. Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP
Rajesh, I was like you way back when. Ran AV on every computer, diligently updated, diligently answered all the annoying dialogs, diligently forked over hundreds of dollars a year for a piece of software that used resources and never told me anything I didn't already know. I'm not arrogant, I've just been around the block and know when "Bob's Fantastic Toolbar!" is dodgy out. Then one day, after about the fifth time Windows told me to disable an AV while installing X, I uninstalled my AV and never reinstalled it. Never had a problem since. If you don't feel comfortable without an AV then fine, go ahead and keep using one. But don't tell the rest of us that we have to use one.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
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"Common sense" keeps you from stepping into obvious traps (NUDE_PARIS_HILTON_SCREENSAVER.EXE and such), but unfortunately malware/crimeware authors have become _a_lot_ smarter. Sure, there still is an awful lot of idiots trying to prey on the unaware, but some of the more sophisticated approaches cannot simply be blocked by "common sense". We live in a time where it can be enough to load an (otherwise inconspicuous) webpage with a prepared image on it to get infected. There's a gazillion of exploits for almost every program you use on a daily basis - do you know all of them? If you don't use antivirus software then you must be either quite naive or rather ignorant.
Regards, mav -- Black holes are the places where God divided by 0...
Why not just use AVG 8 Free Edition. People it's free and gets updated as well. I mean on there site they talk about millions of users use their Anti virus. Plus having a anti virus is just a precaution, it's like having to check your oil of your car every month, though usually you don't need to but it better safe than sorry. :-D
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jhaga wrote:
No, it is my sig. Just a small experiment.
To find out what??
Maruf Maniruzzaman @ Dhaka, Bangladesh. [Homepage] [Blog] [Silverlight Clone] [Resume]
Maruf Maniruzzaman wrote:
To find out what??
The experiment is to see how many people actually go to that page, and how many presses a link on the site. Also interesting to see how fast google indexes pages like that. Sometimes it gets indexed in 15 min and other times never.
How to earn $100/month.
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http://news.zdnet.com/2424-1009_22-202297.html[^] "A better way of dealing with the unknown is to use whitelists--where only authorized or approved software can execute" I don't think it is so easy to do, but probably is the only way to go. jhaga
How to earn $100/month.
The organization that I do work for uses both white lists and anti-virus. Places that use white lists are extremely hostile environments to program in and very difficult to get work done. You are wishing a curse on yourself and others.
MrPlankton
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
And you're firmly in the same category.
Rubbish. Nobody is a dumbass just because he runs an antivirus. Unless, of course, it's Norton. :rolleyes:
Cheers, Vikram.
The hands that help are holier than the lips that pray.
He may not be in the mood, but its in response to calling the OP a dumbass to begin with. Not for using AV. But for insisting that someone who wouldn't is a dumbass. hmmmm.... months without a post and this is what brings me out of the woodwork? :rolleyes:
This statement was never false.
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Rajesh, I was like you way back when. Ran AV on every computer, diligently updated, diligently answered all the annoying dialogs, diligently forked over hundreds of dollars a year for a piece of software that used resources and never told me anything I didn't already know. I'm not arrogant, I've just been around the block and know when "Bob's Fantastic Toolbar!" is dodgy out. Then one day, after about the fifth time Windows told me to disable an AV while installing X, I uninstalled my AV and never reinstalled it. Never had a problem since. If you don't feel comfortable without an AV then fine, go ahead and keep using one. But don't tell the rest of us that we have to use one.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
Stopped that long ago without problems, it is just a matter of being savvy enough to not do things that would harm my machine.
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Rajesh, I was like you way back when. Ran AV on every computer, diligently updated, diligently answered all the annoying dialogs, diligently forked over hundreds of dollars a year for a piece of software that used resources and never told me anything I didn't already know. I'm not arrogant, I've just been around the block and know when "Bob's Fantastic Toolbar!" is dodgy out. Then one day, after about the fifth time Windows told me to disable an AV while installing X, I uninstalled my AV and never reinstalled it. Never had a problem since. If you don't feel comfortable without an AV then fine, go ahead and keep using one. But don't tell the rest of us that we have to use one.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
I think anti-virus serves two purposes. One is to protect people that don't know any better. My mother is a teacher and I had a look at the receptionists computer at her school. When I hit the expand arrow, the system tray damn near bounced off the start button. Non techie people just don't know enough NOT to click that link. The second is to protect me from morons like that receptionist. Flash drives are the worst in my experience. Unfortunately there are circumstances where I do need to transfer files from different machines using a flash drive and there is no way of not "clicking" on autorun.inf when you put a flash drive in. While I have never managed to get a virus on my PC, and I actually tried to infect a copy of outlook in a VM once, but still failed, the number of times I've popped a flash drive into my laptop and NOD has popped up saying "This here fella's a bit of a moron, Want me to make everything better?" is well worth the $30 / year I pay for it.
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mav.northwind wrote:
Can you really say that you know what your machine does whenever the disk LED lites up or your network connection shows traffic? Perhaps anti-virus software developers don't know either in some cases, but I, for my part, know that they know a lot more about how malware works than I do, so I try to keep my signatures up-to-date.
No offense mav, but that sounds a lot like superstition to me...
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
No offense taken :) But I'd rather call it some kind of faith. The faith that the experts creating AV software are as good in their job as others are in their particular area. Since AV software isn't my core business I really don't know why I should know every new threat some dickhead half way 'round the globe came up with. It's enough for me to know that there are people who get paid full time to deal with these things... Why do people insist on not relying on a third party for an additional layer of security?
Regards, mav -- Black holes are the places where God divided by 0...
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Rajesh, I was like you way back when. Ran AV on every computer, diligently updated, diligently answered all the annoying dialogs, diligently forked over hundreds of dollars a year for a piece of software that used resources and never told me anything I didn't already know. I'm not arrogant, I've just been around the block and know when "Bob's Fantastic Toolbar!" is dodgy out. Then one day, after about the fifth time Windows told me to disable an AV while installing X, I uninstalled my AV and never reinstalled it. Never had a problem since. If you don't feel comfortable without an AV then fine, go ahead and keep using one. But don't tell the rest of us that we have to use one.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
For people who simply don't click on bad links how do you really know the link isn't bad? There are tons of exploits in all browsers and there probably always will be. Don't forget infection via USB thumb drive is the social networking of virus infection. You plug your USB device into say a shared laptop/machine to do a demo or presentation, maybe you're at a net cafe to copy some files.. USB auto start is a significant attack vector you probably haven't even considered. The cost of AV is next to nothing, in terms of both computer speed and money for AV these days. When I say the performance cost is next to nothing I'm not talking about bloated crap like Norton/McAfee if that's all you've ever used. There are so many free (but still decent) AV solutions there isn't really a monetary cost either. If the cost is practically 0 why would you not do it?
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No offense taken :) But I'd rather call it some kind of faith. The faith that the experts creating AV software are as good in their job as others are in their particular area. Since AV software isn't my core business I really don't know why I should know every new threat some dickhead half way 'round the globe came up with. It's enough for me to know that there are people who get paid full time to deal with these things... Why do people insist on not relying on a third party for an additional layer of security?
Regards, mav -- Black holes are the places where God divided by 0...
mav.northwind wrote:
But I'd rather call it some kind of faith. The faith that the experts creating AV software are as good in their job as others are in their particular area.
I'll give you that.
mav.northwind wrote:
Why do people insist on not relying on a third party for an additional layer of security?
I went years without locking my doors. I don't mean "at night", i mean never - not when i left for work, not when i left for the weekend... and nothing bad ever came of it. Of course, i moved to an area with a higher crime rate and less folks around to back me up if something happened... and now i lock my doors even in the daytime, even when i'm home, even when i'm walking around with a 12" knife in one hand and a 3' wrench in the other... er, well, the first two scenarios. I think that pretty much parallels where a good many of us are on AV software - we use it when we don't trust the environment we're in; whether that's an untrusted network or a trial installation of unknown software. We'll use it knowing that at best it'll only catch the slow and the stupid intruder, but hoping that that's enough. Otherwise, it's just an unnecessary hindrance.
Citizen 20.1.01
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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mav.northwind wrote:
If you don't use antivirus software then you must be either quite naive or rather ignorant.
Then explain how many techies get by fine without anti-virus.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
What you're saying is partially like saying that it's fine not to have car insurance because you haven't been in an accident and you're confident in your ability to always avoid accidents. Well, fortunately (or unfortunately for you), society has dictated that it is not permissible or responsible for you to have that kind of confidence, and therefore you must buy insurance. The thing about virii that differ from car accidents is that you may not even know you're infected. You may think that you aren't infected because, "oh, no single process is using 100% of my CPU when I'm not running anything" or "ads don't randomly pop up here and there on my desktop for no reason" but the truth is that not everything is so invasive and obnoxious.
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Rajesh, I was like you way back when. Ran AV on every computer, diligently updated, diligently answered all the annoying dialogs, diligently forked over hundreds of dollars a year for a piece of software that used resources and never told me anything I didn't already know. I'm not arrogant, I've just been around the block and know when "Bob's Fantastic Toolbar!" is dodgy out. Then one day, after about the fifth time Windows told me to disable an AV while installing X, I uninstalled my AV and never reinstalled it. Never had a problem since. If you don't feel comfortable without an AV then fine, go ahead and keep using one. But don't tell the rest of us that we have to use one.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
Hi Paul, I am not only a member of CP, but I am a member of ASAP[^] (spywareinfo, bleepingcomputer). I've been guiding people to get their infected computers back up and running. In such cases, I cannot just use an antivirus. I will have to use professional tools, which are designed specifically to this purpose. An example can be HijackThis. I can run a computer without an antivirus with no problems and having been into ASAP for years, I can tell that I will know the internals of viruses, how they infect a computer, ways to remove them, etc., way better than a lot of people around here. But you guys mistook me for preaching others to use an antivirus. I know it clearly that antivirus is a precaution and not a cure. However, the primary reason why I use an antivirus is to scan a thumbdrive or a disc that has been used with other computers as well.
Paul Watson wrote:
If you don't feel comfortable without an AV then fine, go ahead and keep using one. But don't tell the rest of us that we have to use one.
I don't remember saying that you have to use one. I just said that I use one. Correct me if I am wrong.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero .·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·. Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP
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Rajesh, I was like you way back when. Ran AV on every computer, diligently updated, diligently answered all the annoying dialogs, diligently forked over hundreds of dollars a year for a piece of software that used resources and never told me anything I didn't already know. I'm not arrogant, I've just been around the block and know when "Bob's Fantastic Toolbar!" is dodgy out. Then one day, after about the fifth time Windows told me to disable an AV while installing X, I uninstalled my AV and never reinstalled it. Never had a problem since. If you don't feel comfortable without an AV then fine, go ahead and keep using one. But don't tell the rest of us that we have to use one.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
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http://news.zdnet.com/2424-1009_22-202297.html[^] "A better way of dealing with the unknown is to use whitelists--where only authorized or approved software can execute" I don't think it is so easy to do, but probably is the only way to go. jhaga
How to earn $100/month.
There are products that let you do this, especially for safe webbrowsing. DefenseWall comes to mind, and is well-regarded. However, I do recommend you use an antivirus software as well. Since viruses often hit security holes to propagate, you will still be vulnerable due to security holes in the whitelisting software itself and software it can't control. Furthermore, extensive testing of products like DW shows that some Trojans and viruses inevitably break out of the sandbox. The basic fact is that antivirus software is affordable, and can stop these things before the even begin to become a problem. Long story short, you can use whitelisting and sandboxing to effectively deal with threats. However, antivirus software is still irreplaceable for... here it comes... stopping viruses! (And some are even free, so what's big deal?)