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Ask Slashdot: Actual Best-in-Show For Free Anti Virus?
First time accepted submitter paperclipman writes "I'm on the college student budget and want to make sure that my recent investment in an Acer laptop will last me a good long while. I like to think of myself as a reasonably competent CPU user so I'm no adventurous link-clicker, but I do download some music as a recent SoundCloud devotee. My Kaspersky antivirus will be expiring shortly and I don't particularly care to renew with that steep of a fee — any advice from fellow thrifts?"
Windows: Microsoft Security Essentials, free if you have Microsoft Windows XP or higher, and it does work especially for the technical, not too adventerous link clicker. Gives you that extra layer of protection you seem to want for those 'oh shit' moments.
For a free, Windows antivirus, it is hard to beat. Not the greatest, but it works and updates automatically from windows update.
I'd recommend Avast! or AVG, but I'm sure this "Ask Slashdot" is going to start a flame war.
Oh, and first post!
But if you're running Windows, you could actually do a lot worse than Microsoft Security Essentials...
"To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
One of the primary causes of malware is drive-by intrusion via compromised or unmaintained ad servers. Instead of worrying about free antivirus (which by definition rarely catches real 0-day threats), I'd get an ad blocker, or a utility like the paid version of Malwarebytes which blocks malicious website IPs.
Block the IPs and what spits out the malware, don't bother playing whack-a-mole against the latest polymorphic stuff.
As for antivirus, just go with MSE. It usually is in the middle of the pack, is lightweight, and the price is right.
I assume your on Windows and that MSE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Security_Essentials) is available. Seems to work fine for most and MS seems to have not made it a huge resource hog.
K Man
Avast. Used to use AVG, but Avast seems to work better.
I've always found
AVG Free http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage
or
Avira Free http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus
To be good free solutions.
A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. -- Groucho Marx
I'm a big fan of Microsoft Security Essentials. I know it's cool to dislike Microsoft products, but MSE does its job pretty well without being annoying.
I've used AVG in the past, but it has a history of deciding things like iTunes or Windows dlls are viruses and screwing things up, so I avoid it. I used Avira in the past as well, but I think it had ads suggesting I upgrade often.
In the end, I settled on MSE and have had a perfectly cromulent experience with it; no complaints.
MSE or AVG Free. Both work, and have low cpu utilization. AVG gives you more config options, MSE in my experience is accepted by more VPN setups.
Silence is a state of mime.
I put AVG Free on the wife's computer. Just make sure to turn off (or don't install) that damn safesearch thing they have.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
I think he wants to be able to run common software, too.
As others have stated, MSE does a very good job. It easily outclasses the other freebies, and most of the non-free ones as well. For example, I've seen it clean up machines that got infested while under AVG's watch.
And it doesn't slow your machine down to a crawl, which is nice.
"...reasonably competent CPU user"
Using 'CPU' in this incorrect context is a pet peeve.
But anyway, MSE (as other have said) and AdBlocker and/or NoScript for your browser. Assuming you're using anything other than IE. If you're using IE switch to a better condom!
What the hell does that even mean? Do you mean computer?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My son and I (on my Windows partition) have been users of the free version of AVG since 2006. We are both currently running Windows XP, and am glad that AVG continues to support it along with newer flavors of Windows. Free AVG is the download site, and it also includes ad blocking and other features.
"Software is the difference between hardware and reality"
They just get trojans.
You should be downvoted for the reasons stated below: 1. He said his budget is tight 2. He just bought a new Acer laptop 3. Macs do actually get viruses (though there are significantly less viruses for Mac OS X than for Windows) Short story shorter: You're a jerk.
It's free (as in beer) and open-source. It's also very light-weight and works and updates without a hitch.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
First I used Avast, but after a while it began bugging me to to buy the paid version, and slowed down my PC with ill-timed, intensive scans.
I switched to AVG, but after a while it began bugging me to to buy the paid version, and slowed down my PC with ill-timed, intensive scans.
Now I use Microsoft Security Essentials, which is surprisingly good. So far.
Complement with a Spybot Search and Destroy scan every now and then and you're good to go.
i test a couple of free antivirus and i finish using avira the footprint is not bad and he doesn't clog the cpu too much. Just the nag to buy the full version when you update but for the rest i have nothing bad to said about it
-1 Troll.
Knock it off with the Linux evangelism BS. He clearly wants to run whatever (unspecified) OS he has installed. An OS is just a tool for accomplishing a task (i.e., operating the fscking computer). For certain programs, the submitter's current OS perhaps does the job better for him than Linux would. I hate it when people on here don't answer the fscking question and instead scream "Linux" like an uneducated zombie.
Note: anonymous because I'm just too lazy to register for a ./ account. I ain't skeered.
Most universities offer virus protection and support for free. I'd go there first.
If for some reason they don't offer anything, I've had reasonable success with AVG.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
I used to use AVG, but I found it gradually became slower and slower, and stopped actually catching viruses.
Microsoft Security Essentials has the downside of being made by Microsoft, but the plus side of being extremely low-footprint and actually catching things. I pair it with the occasional MBAM scan out of paranoia (MBAM is good at finding and removing infections, but terrible at actively stopping them).
Finally, yeah, throw some AdBlock on there. Almost all the viruses I've caught in the past few years (ie. both of them) have come from malicious ads. Adblock tends to stop a fair number - it's not solid protection alone, but it's good for defense-in-depth.
Mabye we should be building Beowolf Clusters of something?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just run Linux. Linux was fully featured enough to get me through college over a decade ago. Should work for you now. If you have apps that require Windows, put it on a VM which is used for nothing else. Problem solved.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
MSE is great, for the money, and its pretty light weight. I would add Secunia PSI to the list http://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/ It's also free and scans the computer for out of date and vulnerable software. Malwares Favorite place to get in is unpatched software. This includes stuff you installed once and forgot about, stuff that came with your computer that you never use, etc. A totally patched system (including all the forgotten about stuff) is the best way to stay clean in addition to the not clicking on random stuff. In addition, if you don't need it uninstall it. A good example of this is Java. Most people don't acutally need it but have it installed on their computers. Just get rid of it and then you don't have to worry if it's not a secure program. Soundcloud should be clean but it's all the other places to be concerned about.
It's not what you asked, but it's at least as important:
Keep good, usable, uninfected backups of anything that's important to you.
Also, have a means to restore your computer to a known good state and have the ability to re-install applications you want.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
while the list could use a refresh, may still be helpful http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388652,00.asp
I would label "radical optimism" as a virus.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Try to use a non-admin account for your daily stuff. An escalated admin account when you do need to install stuff is just 2 clicks away (start -> change user)
I've had my computer-illiterate parents on a non-admin account for 20 years now, they still haven't gotten a virus. And yes, they're still computer-illiterate ^^
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I have been using Comodo Internet Security Suite for years now and have been quite pleased with it. In fact its the only free anti-virus that I can install on Server 2008 R2. Only downside in my opinion is that it does not like game trainers. However, I have been hearing a lot of positives about the WSE.
I agree, Linux. If you want to be free of viruses, buy a Mac or install Linux or BSD. Your AV isn't going to do a damned thing when you get hit by a zero-day exploit, and Windows is the only PC OS with viruses in the wild. Whoever modded the AC "troll" should never get mod points; it was insightful (as another moderator noted). If you're worried about viruses, you shouldn't be running Windows.
That said, there are vew actual viruses out there, most are trojans, so I don't worry too much about my W7 notebook. But I don't worry at all about my Linux tower.
Free Martian Whores!
Shortest story: Whoosh.
50,000 characters used to live here.
Hey paperclipman! Microsoft Security Essentials is a good free option if you want decent protection. But since you're in college, I'm sure your school offers a free copy of one of the "enterprise" level anti-virus solutions. My university offers Symantec Endpoint to all of it's faculty/staff/students. So you should definitely check out your schools IT Support website to see if they offer anything. I mean you are sorta paying for it :P
Have you tried Common Sense 2012? I hear it works well in most sensible cases. Other than that on the cheap : Microsoft Security Essentials. It seems a bit contradictory to let MS handle anti-virus software, but at least it doesn't hog your system as badly as most other products.
reasonably competent CPU user
Yes, I know how you feel. I like to think of myself a I/O aficionado. I have a friend who's a memory expert. We know a guy who was pretty much a BIOS guru, but he's not feeling too well lately after hearing about the UEFI thing.
but I do download some music as a recent SoundCloud devotee
I hardly know anyone who downloads their music from SoundCloud. Most tracks are either demos (with a link to itunes, amazon, juno or whatever). And the few amateurs that are serious about their music have already joined one of the many netlabels where you can usually download entire albums from their own site or bandcamp.
Are you by any chance doing market research, trying to infiltrate into the tech crowd while looking young, hip, dynamic and social 2.0 web networking? You're doing a splendid job, I might add. However, please forgive my sarcasm if you're not, your post seems to read like a 55 year old police officer going under cover "buyin' da ganja mon, totally down with da 'erb an' ting".
Avast! and Malwarebytes or use one of the many Linux flavors out there. I myself use openSUSE Linux.
Chris Sheppard
Here's a link to Virus Bulletin for a comparison of free and paid packages. I'd also recommend a multi-tiered strategy of OpenDNS and and a hosts file to block bad sites, MalwareBytes to scan and check for malware (paid version provides real-time protection), and I also use Tracking Protection Lists. Takes all the joy out of it, doesn't it.
Well, I'm certain your computing needs are identical to everyone else's.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I agree, but only if OP understands both the positives and negatives of using Linux on a daily basis. Unless you're a gamer, anything you absolutely need Windows for can be done in a virtual machine or under WINE (and many games also run pretty well under WINE). I personally use Linux at home for everything, starting in high school all the way through the completion of my university degree, and I've needed WINE for precisely two things: LTSpice (really, nothing else I've been able to find is anywhere near as good) and a few games.
I really wanted to change my sig to something witty, but all I could come up with is this.
not because it's free, and not because I think it's way better - but because it's the least intrusive and annoying AV apps I've used ... I'm OK with no pop ups, task bar balloons, registration reminders or boot-up logos ...
Another free AV + Firewall Protection. It's more of a resource hog than MSE, but it really locks down the PC.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Agree with everything (including him being a jerk), except for the virus point. Which is not to say that Macs cannot get them (they absolutely can), just that OS X hasn't had any yet that I'm aware of. All of their malware so far has been of the trojan variety, which is the simplest to make and the most difficult to protect against.
Mine offers McAfee, with several onerous options pre-set. I'd go with MS Security Essentials over that nightmare every time.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
you realize that attitudes like yours and GPs are exactly what turns prospective linux neophytes off, right?
For an every-day user, Linux has just as many problems as windows. the problems are just completely different. Source: I use both linux and windows every day. typing this on a linux laptop for pete's sake.
For the OP's concerns, linux very well may be his best option, but telling him that he's been playing in the little kid's sandbox is very nearly as counterproductive as telling him that he's a retard, as GP did.
For the vast majority of people, Linux is a heap of useless trash. It's inconsistent. It has relatively poor hardware compatibility. It has no software compatibility for software that real people care about. There's basically no good reason for the average home user to touch it.
Windows is the only PC OS with viruses in the wild.
No, it's not. You're lying or playing on words. Windows is not the only PC OS with threats in the wild at all.
Whoever modded the AC "troll" should never get mod points; it was insightful (as another moderator noted).
People who are actually insightful don't need to be covered by other people. They naturally get better ratings over time.
The comment is scoring 0 at the time of writing, probably because it offers absolutely no content and doesn't even begin to answer the OP's question, which is about finding a free Antivirus for the OS that he uses, Windows.
In short, the post was modded negatively because it was a shitty comment. No conspiracy here.
Good News: The free Microsoft AV (MSE) is basically as good as any product we looked at.
Bad News: All AV sucks to varying degrees. Noone consistently had both good detection and quick enough signature updates. We see AV as a small piece of overlapping defense.
At least as important:
- Relentless patching of everything on your box (look at Secuna PSI for home use).
- Use a non-admin account for daily computing. Consider using throw-away Windows VMs when visiting potentially dangerous territory.
- Ad/Flash/Script blockers plugins.
- Disable Java.
Things like this probably have as much bang-for-buck as AV.
Does it matter what virus scanner you use how long your computer keeps working? Are you one of those people that throw their computer out if it gets a virus or gets too slow to use it? You might want to invest in making backups and learning how to reinstall your computer. Actually speeding up a windows install by cleaning out the registry and dumping old files might be a bit too advanced for the starting user, but at least you can learn how to reinstall a system and put your data back.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
This place really has gone down hill - 'first time submitter' wants to know what anti-virus to use. Information given:
I have a Acer laptop and I use SoundCloud.
Any hint to operating system? No. We will have to assume Windows then. Which is confirmed by the first post within a couple of minutes [where is the frosty piss post?] :
'Windows: Microsoft Security Essentials, free if you have Microsoft Windows XP or higher, and it does work especially for the technical, not too adventerous link clicker. Gives you that extra layer of protection you seem to want for those 'oh shit' moments.'
From an AC and modded 5 Informative.
News for nerds - stuff that matters. I remember them days well.
Feel free to join me over at hacker news.
Clam AntiVirus - http://www.clamav.net/
Granted it was ten years ago, but when I went to UNCC, there was a small selection of software provided by the school under a shared license for free to students. This included, in my case, norton corporate, which was not intrusive and did an admirable job. Might wanna check around and see if you have similar options available. While the best free AV might be MSE for Windows, you might be able to get a paid AV for free.
But seriously, random slashdot poster, what's keeping you from Tux?
Based on his question I'd guess that he's a college freshman. In that case it's probably a combination of spending time on making friends, on flirting, on going to parties, on drinking beer and perhaps on that thing that you do in the house where everyone goes during the day.
I think learning to use Linux is probably more of a second semester thing unless you're a CS major.
There are reasons to why Linux is safer, but they are mostly non-technical.
I think the most important reasons are that the user base is rather small, and the users are more likely to have a clue,
making it less interesting as a target for virus makers.
There is absolutely nothing "technical" that prevents a virus or a trojan wiping your files or steal your data. The users
are just slightly less prone to execute any file they find on the net, and most virus infected executables are not written for Linux..
And perhaps also that the OS does not ( or did not used to) autostart executables on removable media.
So, you could argue that the tools and servers are a little bit more bulletproof and perhaps thats true, but the sad truth is probably that a linux box would
be p0wned in no time at all, if it was used to control a uranium centrifuge...
I think you and the OP would get along well. :)
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
When I last asked this question, a lot of people pointed me at AVG, and I hated it with every fiber of my being.
AVG was far worse than any virus I could ever receive, and removing it proved just as painful.
As most other have pointed out, MSE works just fine.
It is free and easy to use. It also seems to be easier on the resources than some other tools. However I have had it miss things that other programs found (and they were NOT false positives). I know of other people that have experienced this problem as well. I recently looked through some antivirus comparisons and MSSE really fell short on a few of those tests. If I remember correctly, one of these tests had MSSE fail to detect about 14%. I would look for other software.
--
If a person gives their two cents on an argument, does inflation make their opinion worth less?
The response to "just use Linux" is usually "but... herp, it doesn't run Photoshop or Autocad!"
http://i.imgur.com/fbld7.png
On a further note, I finally tried the 3D acceleration under VirtualBox after ignoring it for years. It works fine. Linux for most eveything and virtualization for the handful of legacy software packages you "can't do without."
A note about installing the 3D accelerated driver: If you are virtualizing Windows FLP, the fastest booting Windows NT driven OS of the 21'st century, you need to edit boot.ini or use msconfig to switch to safe mode, because it boots so fast that spamming the F8 key won't work.
--
BMO
http://av-comparatives.org/
This tests a lot of antivirus and shows you their detection rate, false-positive rate, etc.
I myself promote Avira Antivir, which is lightweight, does well on AV-Comparatives.org, and is gratis.
Of course, the best solution is to install Ubuntu; if you choose it, I can give you free support over email.
And remember: any Windows antivirus (even, to a lesser degree, Ubuntu) will only attenuate the problem. You are _not_ safe just because you have a good antivirus (or run Ubuntu). You _must_ take care: don't go to rogue sites, don't execute untrusted executables, don't use pirated software, etc.
Good luck.
I have used Avast for a number of years now, and it has been good to me. That coupled with Malwarebytes and I use Spybot S&D's blacklisting feature (which Malwarebytes has, but it's a paid feature.) I haven't had a virus in years, not since XP...which I don't know if that says more about Microsoft security improvements (undeniable) or the anti-virus software. Either way.
Is that it updates itself via Windows update. So should it fail to get a virus database update internally, Windows update will fix it. If there's a new version, Windows update will get it. Very good for people who just don't want to mind after the program.
That said, I think there are pay for solutions that are better (NOD32 is what I like) but if you want free, it works great.
Kaspersky are surprisingly uncompetitive when it comes to selling their own products, including via in-application upgrade 'offers'.
If you're otherwise happy with the product have a look on Amazon instead. I do this and pay less than £20 for a 3-user licence each year.
"...make sure that my recent investment in an Acer laptop will last me a good long while"
Huh? Please don't tell me that you're one of those people who think that once a computer gets infected with malware that it has to be thrown out. Wipe the hard drive (or replace it if you want to be super-thorough) and reload the OS, apps, and data. Presto: investment salvaged.
In fact, you might want to do this from time to time even if your computer doesn't get properly infected, because Windows (and to a lesser extent other OSes) build up performance-sucking cruft over time as you use them. I refurb the "retired" laptops before my employer sells them off, and the people who buy their old ones are often surprised at how fast they run after a clean reinstall of Windows.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
No, it wasn't insightful. It was a one word post, had absolutely nothing to do with the original question, and was posted just as a general freebie troll / flamebait post ( hence the AC ).
While ideally you would run Linux if you are worried about security ( and EVERYONE, no matter what OS they use should be ) since it is generally more secure than Windows has proven itself in the past ( W7 is 1000x better than ME/2K/XP and you can't even compare 3.1/95/98 to it ) Linux sometimes just plain doesn't work out yet.
One example right now it WIFI on my campus. I have been messing around for over a week and a half trying to get PEAP to work with my adapter, I finally found out today after getting a ton of logging done that it SEEMS like my wireless driver (Ath9k) for some reason doesn't support the PEAP keys... on kernel 3.1 through 3.6RC6 at the very least. Win7 and Macs have no problems connecting. Guess what I have to use if I want internet access through WIFI and not USB tethering to my phone? I wish I could get this laptop connected, I like KDE BasKet a lot better than Evernote, even though both are quite usable. That and I'm more comfortable in Debian, I've been using it for years on my server and laptops and all but one of my desktop PCs.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
Where is my mycleanpc spam?
Linux. Kidding. I'm surprised no one chimed up with that "solution" yet. Actually, MSE is going to be your best value. I used Avira for years until just in the last few they started hammering me with popups. But seriously. I'm a linux guy, only use windows when I have to. I just don't worry about virii on Linux.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
While clearly not an anti-malware program.... run Firefox with No-Script and let it block all links on any given webpage, with you allowing or temporarily allowing specific sites on an as-needed basis. This should prevent cross-site scripting attacks. Free, easy to manage, etc. But yes, you also want MSE or another active anti-malware program in addition to this.
Get a Linux VM and install the latest version of Firefox/Chrome on it. Then back up the image.
Every time you want to use the net, run the VM and browse through that. It's called a Browser Appliance.
Bonuses: Most malware doesn't target Linux. Even if it did, your host OS is Windows. And if you restore the VM snapshot every time you shut it down, even if you did get hacked it will be gone without interfering with the rest of the computer.
:(){
If you have Comcast as you ISP, they offer Norton as a freebie. I used to stay far away from Norton because it was a resource hog and was constantly annoying, but I find the newest version actually pretty good.
I disagree, but I'm much closer to your opinion than the two hopeless fanboys that posted earlier.
Full disclosure, I use Linux in a professional environment. We use it to run wifi hardware, and in LAMP configurations for websites. Personally, I have used Linux off and on for the past six years, and Windows since it existed.
For the combination of low resource overhead and stability, Linux (CentOS in our case) beat Windows hands-down for the hardware that we sell to clients. We need something that will act as a router, bridge, or access point, so we need it to stay up and running for as long as possible. We don't upgrade hardware often, so as long as it works when it's installed it'll probably be fine, and we don't need to update the OS for the same reason.
In all other regards, Linux has been at best something that we can work around, and at worst a hindrance.
In 2012, being limited to a command line is archaic and counter-productive, so a user should be able to accomplish most if not all tasks from within a GUI. We can argue about command line interfaces and how 1337sauce they are all day, but the fact that all serious OSs on the market, including Linux, incorporate GUIs tends to indicate that moving away from command lines considered a good move by people that design and develop operating systems. It might be faster for people who are used to it to live in the command line, but the overwhelming majority of users want GUIs that provide all the functionality they need, and people who are in the business of making operating systems respond to this. And, overall, if the GUI is well-designed, it's generally more efficient than the command line. My opinion, yes, but I'll argue it all day.
Any security gains in Linux (and there certainly are) are mitigated by the obscurity of the system itself. Yes, you can batten down a Linux installation to a level of security you don't see with MS if you know what you're doing. The problem is that you have to have a high level of comfort and expertise with the OS to see these benefits; you can realize at least base-line security on a Windows machine without having to know anything about IPTABLES. It's like the classic martial arts dilemma: Chinese boxing might be superior to all other martial arts, but it takes decades to achieve mastery; a student of Krav Maga or jujitsu can become competent in a few years.
At our office I and another person write the documentation. With Open Office, we ran into formatting issues that, frankly, made it impossible to produce a professional-looking document. Even the person who'd been doing the documentation before, who is a self-described "Linux guy", admitted that he'd reached the limits of what could be done with OOo, and recommended I use Wine to install Office. This required that I switch distros, because CentOS doesn't support the latest version of Wine, which was required to install Office 2010 (a copy of which had already been purchased for a previous employee). Admittedly, the alternative was to install some flavor of Windows on a VM, but that would've required buying a license; I work at a very small company where cost is always an issue. Eventually, after some tweaking, I got Wine to install Office and launch it reliably, although there are stability issues.
As a gamer, too, I can speak to Wine and Linux in home applications. Yes, some games run under Wine. Certainly not all, and not even most. Also, big releases, especially multiplayer games, remain the province of Windows. It's changing, slowly, and Steam going to Linux is a promising development, but a PC running Windows remains the best platform for gaming. And, sure, you can run a VM, but then you're adding to hardware requirements that new releases already stretch on most PCs.
I know it's sort of de rigeur to hate Windows if you like Linux, but it's not the 1990s. Linux has come a long way, especially Ubuntu, and I think the argument can be made that some distros are no longer "hobbyist" OSs, but Windows remains the authoritative PC operat
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
I would actually stay away from AVG and AVAST. I had viruses go past AVG and AVAST undetected. AVAST has the same detection rate but it does cause OS hangs and sometimes BSOD's, well in the past it did on windows xp, vista, 7. Right now, I'm using Kaspersky which has a good detection rate but it's so damn expensive, but for some reason it caused my windows 7 to schedule chkdsk(hard drive is fine) on every boot, removing this from the scheduler did not stop it so I had to reinstall the whole OS and now no issues with Kaspersky(new update fix) installed. Microsoft's own MSE is not that bad and i think it's better than avg and avast.
For windows 7 and windows 8, with MSE, avoid porn sites, don't download things you don't know about, and logging in as a limited user after installing whatever apps as an administrator, should sufficient enough to avoid viruses. Or just go for Linux if you are just surfing the web, playing music or movies on your machine.
I've got all the common software I need on my Linux machines. I haven't even had machines with other OSs for at least 8 years.
I've got all the common software I need on my Windows machine. I haven't even had machines with other OSs for at least 8 years. Anecdote annihilation!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
For my business clients that have to use Windows, I've had good experiences with installing Linux on the machine, then installing Virtualbox, then installing Windows within Virtualbox. When (not if) Windows gets a virus, I have them roll back to the last good snapshot. The virus goes away when the rollback occurs.
This won't work if you want to play games, of course. But for pure business use, it's been successful.
I'm sure others have said it. Probably just spam to this discussion but it's a great anti virus.
"Facts" mentioned in parent post are five-plus years out of date.
Talking about Linux versus Windows is pretty much like talking about aircraft versus Chevrolet sedans. There are as many variants of Linux as there are different kinds of aircraft, so there are not many generalized comparisons that can be made between all of them and Windows. Just like it is hard to find a general comparison between Chevies and (fighter jets/helicopters/bush planes/cargo planes).
Of the several Linux distros that are directly comparable with Windows in the college student setting, Ubuntu is probably the best known. It is more secure than Windows, easier to administer than Windows, recognizes most peripherals, and is just generally better than Windows all the way around. One caveat is that its current default desktop environment (DE) is Unity, which is still having some teething problems. However unlike Windows, it is possible to change the DE quite easily. There is a Gnome or KDE variant for every user's work style.
The most important thing about Ubuntu, though, is that there are now Ubuntu communities in every college setting. The new user will have no trouble finding someone to help them set up their machine for the stuff they want to do. This is very different from the Windows model, where there most common form of "expertise" is the salesperson who knows just which $125 software package will do exactly what you want, and by the way, did you know that if you buy this $300 foot pedal and steering yoke peripheral you can drive quickly through all your spreadsheet chores?
I just thought of one way in which aircraft can be compared with Chevies. Aircraft are generally well built with hundreds of different experts examining each piece to make sure they all work properly together. Chevies? Not so much. Same thing between Linux distros and Windows.
Of course if the important thing is playing games rather than the studies, then certainly Windows is the way to go.
Will
I find it wrong to freeload on sites that cost time and money to maintain. So I don't adblock. I do run Ubuntu, Firefox and Noscript though. Do you think I'm safe?
Here are the domains in my noscript whitelist (minus some personal domains that I omitted for privacy)
[had to put two domains per line because of Slashdot filter]
2mdn.net addthis.com
amazonaws.com
amung.us chartbeat.com
cloudfront.net disqus.com
doubleclick.net fbcdn.net
firstdata.com firstdata.lv
flashgot.net
fsdn.com fyre.co
gmodules.com google-analytics.com
google.com google.com.br
googleapis.com googlecode.com
googletagservices.com googleusercontent.com
googlezeitgeist.com gravatar.com
gstatic.com identi.ca
informaction.com jqueryui.com
livefyre.com maone.net
mywot.com mywot.net
passport.com passport.net
passportimages.com paypal.com
paypalobjects.com persona.org
pinterest.com polldaddy.com
rating-widget.com securecode.com
securesuite.net sharethis.com
siteadvisor.com sitemeter.com
slashdot.org statcounter.com
status.net stumbleupon.com
topsy.com ubuntu.com
vimeo.com vimeocdn.com
w3techs.com wikimedia.org
wikipedia.org wlxrs.com
wmtips.com wordpress.com
yahoo.com yahooapis.com
yimg.com youtube-nocookie.com
youtube.com ytimg.com
about:blank about:startpage
[UNTRUSTED]
ad4game.com atdmt.com
klout.com quantserve.com
By the way, is there some known-good whitelist I can download?
Since I have an online subscription to Consumer Reports, I always look at their security software ratings when they get revised. It may not be a "tech" resource, but for a family desktop or laptop, it's not a bad place to look. It's also independent of advertiser influence. In their reviews over the years, there have usually been several free products that rate higher than paid products. I do notice however that year-to-year, they shift around a lot in ranking.
I use Noscript (and Ubuntu) too, but I wonder if it is worth it.
Anyway, is there a known-good whitelist I can download?
I don't mean "use Linux", which has already been suggested a number of times, predictably. I mean no antivirus installed whatsoever, and do the following:
- Before you run any binaries and otherwise infectable files you download, run them through an online antivirus (e.g. ESET).
- In Explorer, don't generate thumbnails.
- services.msc and disable everything you don't need
- Run a firewall. Even a basic one will do.
- Don't use IE or Outlook.
That's how I roll, and I know for a fact I haven't had a virus for about a decade. I'm absolutely positive the machine isn't in a botnet or anything of that sort because I regularly monitor my traffic in the router. If I had a virus I almost certainly wouldn't be able to browse to ESET online or any other antivirus site. Finally ESET online also scans the RAM.
Facts mentioned in this post are 5 years in the future because the Linux experience you describe does not exist. Easier to administer than Windows. Fuck off. "It is possible to change the DE easily". Fuck off. I've been waiting 3 hours for lubuntu-desktop to install dozens of unnecessary packages for me and now it's failed and refuses to give me LXDE. That's not a five years in the past out of date blah di blah di fanboi. That's just happened. Right this second. Linux has been going backwards for ages. It used to be really lean and reliable. Now it's festooned with pointless bloat that is poorly tested and annoyingly slow and unreliable. If they wanted to duplicate the Vista experience they've done it. Otherwise you are pretending that you didn't have to dick about with the damn thing for ages to get to a level of functionality that is out of the box on Windows 7 or Mac OS.
>competent user
>buys an Acer
>calls a computer a CPU
nope.avi
Please see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3140615&cid=41442941
I've been working on this beast since around 2002.
.ocx files. As I have the free time, I'm currently working on a newer version that a lot more streamlined. Once it's done, TT Livescan should consume about half as many resources as it currently does, and run about 20%-25% faster. Also keep in mind that an internet connection of some kind is required in order to use TT Livescan.
http://www.tot-ltd.org/
http://www.tot-ltd.org/TT-Livescan-2011.rar
Technical information - http://www.tot-ltd.org/techinf.html
As a side note, you will need to manually install the dependencies if you're running Vista or 7. Run the command prompt as an administrator, then use regsvr32 as you normally would to register the
ClamAV seems to be pretty good and very versatile. Its very flexible and can be used in a variety of deployments.
http://interserver.net/
1. What was the last distribution you used? slackware 3.1?
2. define 'real people.' The people who use other operating systems are no less real, except maybe to microsoft's and apple's bottom lines.
3. why not? the average home user uses facebook, youtube, and plays some music/videos and that's about it, right? Virtually any os can handle that. Linux does just as good a job as any.
The antivirus researchers all talk to each other (and despise their marketing departments), so the actual quality of virus-checking is about the same between all antiviruses. So the difference is entirely in how much it annoys you.
I generally put ClamWin on Windows boxes I have the misfortune to have to set up.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
This! Windows is pretty solid if you do want all Linux, Unix and Mac users do - Don't freaking run as Administrator/Root.
If you have an app that needs admin permission, right-click/properties and set it to run with your admin account. Heck, Win 7 will even tell you it needs an admin account and show you a list to choose from.
Place nail here >+
If you wish to continue with Windows, then I fully recommend Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free for individuals and small companies running XP upwards, and perhaps more importantly doesn't seem to bog things down nearly as much as Norton or McAfee, while remaining just as effective.
Remember, I said IF.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Windows:
1) MSE
2) Avira (has Ads)
3) Avast (also has ads)
4) AVG (not as bad ads as 2 or 3, but protection not as good)
5) ClamAV
Mac:
1) Sophos for Mac
2) Avast
3) Clam-AV
Linux:
1) Avast
2) AVG
3) Clam-AV
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
But are you a nice CPU user?
I was able to run Call of duty 4 modern warfare 1 in wine in ubuntu 12.10 and the only issue was that it was too slow even on a phenom iix6@2700, but i think its the ati radeon 6850 proprietary drivers. I ran it successful in the past at full speed but using an old geforce 9800gt, 512mb ram, 256-bit bus width. I'm gonna buy an nvidia card since they run a lot better in linux.
MSE? have you ever done any back to back trials?
I used to recommend MSE, however after it not finding something when I KNEW there was a virus, only avira was able to find it and remove it.
Ever since then, I have swore by avira. However you do have to jump through hoops to get it working though, such as having to blacklist avnotify.exe in secpol so you don't see avira ads. Annoying, and why it makes it difficult to recomend to anyone who is not comfortable with editing windows security policies.
This is a very interesting topic to me as well and I am somewhat saddened to see everyone recommending MSE which hasn't seemed to work well after the initial few months when it was released.
I now wonder how many people with MSE just think they are secure, because yes it is very unobtrusive. However after finding several other viruses which MSE did not detect over the last year, avira was the only one to find them all. I do several virus uninstalls a month, mostly from employees home systems. Many have MSE installed.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
1. Windows forces people to the command line all the time, it's just that when that happens, the user in question already has a tech working on his machine. At least linux has a decent command line environment. Windows' is a mess. In 2012, both CLI and GUI have a place, and for common tasks, kde/gnome (not 3), xfce, and possibly others offer what is needed.
2. The security of linux (and other unix derivatives) is the user process separation from root coupled with a sane security model that is relatively easy to understand. Windows comes from an era when security was not a concern. It was bolted on later on NT, but because most user code expected to have full access to resources, the defaults were broken for the sake of compatibility, and the resulting convoluted system requires a well trained pro (or elite hax0r) to batten down. Even that is questionable. Windows is the ultimate example of spaghetti code making security at that level impossible. now, there are some linux distributions heading down this path and it is not a good thing, but at least it is still possible to get a sane environment with lesser known distros.
3. define 'professional.' alarms go off when someone trots out that word because it's a cop out. 'Obviously' whatever the person's doing is 'professional' because he is 'obviously' a 'professional' and so therefore the software must be at fault. While the software may not suit the need, saying that this makes it 'unprofessional' in your 'professional' opinion is a fallacy. There are plenty of instances where ms office falls flat too. Is that software now not 'professional'?
4. Games are an area where I can agree with you, though the platform has great technical potential. During the quake years, gaming on linux often got me much better, more consistent performance than on windows. However, wine is not and will not be a solution until someone writes a d3d backend for it that targets nvidia/ati with reasonable performance.
5. 'good' is a subjective term. For some, windows truly is better, for most it's just a default and what they do can be done on anything. For others, linux is a much better path.
I was auditing my Noscript whitelist. For every domain in the whitelist, I checked the Noscript page on it - such as http://noscript.net/about/test.com;test.com.
I am puzzled by the Google Safe Browsing Diagnostic results. It yields worrying results for a lot of domains that are listed as safe by all the other tools.
For example, see http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=gmodules.com
What am I supposed to do? It seems that every other domain (including important domains like gmodules.com) has acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware! Should I block them all (excluding some very essential ones)?
Now I know you asked for Anti-virus, and for that, I recommend Avast! Free anti-virus. Windows Defender, or Security Essentials is fine if you're pretty damn careful with your downloads, Now along with Avast, Malwarebytes is the BEST and I mean ranked THE most reliable and up to date anti-malware software available, and it's on CNET as well as their website, which I think links to cnet... I would just go here: http://www.malwarebytes.org/
I use multiple programs on my PCs as not every program will detect everything. I currently use Microsoft Security Essentials, SpyBot Search and Destroy, and the free AVG antivirus. The 3 of these run continuously and can be configured to auto update. I don't usually see much of a hit in CPU usage as I have MSE and AVG set for different scheduled scan times and updates.
A couple of times a month, depending on my Internet usage, I will also run the free versions of SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. As stated in previous comments, a few of these will detect keygens as malware. I usually set all of these programs to ask me what I want to do with detected files.
As with any new antivirus program you install, take the time to immediately update and run a full scan.
Good luck.
Good luck with that. Mine died a month out of the 1 year warranty (motherboard) :-(. Was the second Acer I ever bought and will be the last one (first one had also its share of issues).
Perl Programmer for hire
The only thing AV provides is a false sense of security. With AV, you're waiting until AFTER an infection occurs and then HOPING the AV company you've chosen has A) seen the malware before, B) bothered to add a signature to their definitions list, and C) is actually capable of removing the virus.
Better ideas: Turning on AppLocker & running most of the time as an unprivileged user. Check out OSSEC for use as a File Integrity Monitor and Host-based Intrusion Detection System. Disable unnecessary services, remove unnecessary programs, use an ad-blocker, a "default deny all" firewall policy and get a 3rd party patch manager to keep all your non-MS bits up to date. Secunia PSI is a free patch manager/vuln scanner for home use - there are others.
For a detailed description of just how bad AV is at protecting systems, check out the following blog post at computer-forensics.sans.org:
http://computer-forensics.sans.org/blog/2012/04/09/is-anti-virus-really-dead-a-real-world-simulation-created-for-forensic-data-yields-surprising-results
/*Insert boring sig here*/
Works for me, but most Windows users I know only consider AV when their PC stops working.
Keeps me in pocket money and free stuff. I was given a nice, clean 2008 Dell Inspiron today. Owner hated Vista, didn't even ask me about loading anything different. PC are cheap enough to shitcan when they don't work properly.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Quote: "reasonably competent CPU user"
Really?
1st. Get Avast + Avira. I've used them together for 4+ years and the play well together. Avira constanly best for virus and Avast has quite a few real-time shields. Schedule one for Saturday night scan and on for Tuesday night scan.
2nd. Get SpyWareBlaster (operates completely different with next to nothing resources) and MalewareBytes free. Update both weekly and scan with MalewareBytes - no need to scan with SpyWareBlaster.
3rd. I also have many thousand sits blacklisted in my host file from when I use SpyBot, but I no longer use it. I think Avast can do this for you these days,
4th. Get KeyScrabler for your browsers.
I've NEVER have been compromised (that I know of anyhow) in 4+ years and Avast is very good about detecting bad sites and protecting you.
They just get trojans.
That's because of their extraordinary sex lives... Macs like them ribbed for her pleasure!!!
And I would label "radical pessimism" an inflammatory autoimmune illness.
Parent post makes some good points. There are a couple of corrections, though.
First, the Gimp v2.8 that was released earlier this year offers nested layers, CMYK color separation, a strong vector graphics editor, and a reasonably effective video editor for short clips. This covers everything needed by more than 90% of professional users, with the possible exception of adjustment layers. Those are expected to come soon, and in the meantime there are workarounds. I can personally attest to Gimp working well with 100 MB files of more than 60 individual layers, that I have used as resource files in some 3D texture work.
The main reason why Gimp will not see an upsurge in use by professionals is that making the change from Photoshop would be more frustrating than changing from a Qwerty to a Dvorak keyboard, when you are on deadline to publish that dissertation that will guarrantee that you keep your job. In short, Gimp is crippled in the marketplace by the "inertia between the ears" problem. Unless you are aiming for a career in graphics arts, that is not an issue.
Second, Blackboard does not list any Linux distro as "supported" but users have found that at least some distros do in fact work, even with "unsupported" browsers. Also Blackboard is willing to take $2500 from you in exchange for them teaching you how to set up a Blackboard system on RedHat, which is very much a Linux distro. If the server can be run from Linux, then Blackboard would have to be really screwed up if Linux clients would not work with it. A final point: a lot of schools have dropped Blackboard and gone to Moodle. I do not know why that is but I suspect that as a very active open source project, Moodle is less expensive, easier to administer, and provides a more consistent student experience.
But yeah, the basic point of parent post is that if you are stuck in some backwater university that is not keeping up with opencourseware and similar 21st century teaching methods, then if all they know how to do is use an abacus, you are better off if you get an abacus and forego the scientific calculator. I agree with that logic. Of course you are best off if you transfer out of that diploma mill, but that would be a rant about using the level of Linux support as an indicator of the quality of the university.
Will
First sentence fourth paragraph should read:
Second, Blackboard does not list any Linux distro as "supported" but users have found that at least some distros do in fact work, even with "unsupported" browsers.
A typo had destroyed the link.
Also there is a link from the blackboard.com site to the pdf file that describes the Redhat / Blackboard training opportunity.
Will
Congratulations, you are an idiot!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
My name is John McAfee and I approve this message...
Avast is hands down the best of the freebies, surpassing Avira a couple of years ago. Multiple system guards, GMER antirootkit technology, sandboxing of suspicious files, incremental updates, boot-time scanning, much more. More like a paid AV than any other free option. If you set the full or quick scan options correctly, that is, to populate the persistent cache AND to update it, you'll see scan times get faster and faster. Most importantly, consistently very high marks in independent tests. Look at AV-Comparatives, VirusBulletin RAP, and ShadowServer's Zero-Day stats and draw your own conclusions. In my real world results, Avast is measurably better at blocking web threats than Avira, and blows away AVG and MSE. In fact, MSE would be my LAST choice. Expect to be infected if you are running MSE. Along with Avast, install the free version of MalwareBytes and run a regular one-time scan with HitmanPro. Keep Adobe, Windows and Firefox/Chrome patched, Ditch JRE or keep it patched. You'll be good to go. Oh, and don't forget to run Kaspersky's product removal tool after you uninstall from Add/Remove Programs, and before you install Avast.
Before you call MSE non-intrusive, you might want to read this... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5924707/fwrite-chokes-on-xml-version/ Overall, the other "AV" products are orders of magnitude worse in bloat and intrusiveness, but I can't believe they messed up something as fundamental as this...
I think it's a self aware computer which is posting this question to slashdot. A computer is a 'CPU user'.
I had bad experiences with MSSE slowing older hardware to a crawl. If you have a newer machine, maybe it can handle the load. I wish it had a CPU and disk usage control feature to throttle it up or down as needed.
Table-ized A.I.
Check out www.virusbtn.com for their VB100 comparison of antivirus solutions. Avira free comes out ahead of the majority of the best known commercial offerings.
AV is really a second line of defence. Basically, we're well past the point that signature scans can keep up, and heuristics can only do so much - the more you increase the sensitivity, the more false positives it generates and confusion sets in. I've found the best primary defense is a good personal firewall. At the risk of being accused of shilling, I've found Comodo free version as an excellent example for windows (caveat, haven't used it for a couple of years now) - which keeps track of all processes and files that are requesting stuff over the network. It always alerts when a new event occurs and asks for your blessing before allowing. It picked up stuff that went straight through AV - and submitting what it alerted usually returned a new malware variant when vendors looked at it. This is not a reason to not run AV - but a reason to think of firewalling as your primary protection.
smilies are for reetards
How much does Forefront cost?
An entire industry was spawned because Windows was conceived without security in mind. Now that Microsoft is redressing the oversight, I don't think many people outside the third-party AV industry will be crying foul. I'm no fan of Microsoft but I'm happy with MSSE and do not foresee an antitrust suit because of it.
I've been waiting 3 hours for lubuntu-desktop to install dozens of unnecessary packages for me and now it's failed and refuses to give me LXDE.
Really? It hardly takes me that long to build KDE - from source - on Gentoo. And I don't just mean kwin, I mean ALL packages provided by the KDE team, including games, utilities, etc. Gentoo calls the package kde-meta (a meta package depending on all the KDE software). That's on my modest desktop machine. KDE is quite a bit larger than LXDE. You seem to be doing something wrong.
On my significantly more modest netbook, I went with Linux Mint. On my 3mbit DLS connection installing KDE took about 15-20 minutes. Of course, these were binary packages, but like before, I went with the full-blown KDE install. KDE is quite a bit larger than LXDE. I assume (since you did not specify) that you were not building from source, so this is a fair comparison: binary packages to binary packages. 15-20 minutes and success, compared to 3 hours and failure. You seem to be doing something wrong.
Honestly you sound like a drunk driver who wants to blame Ford for making a crashable car. Oh, and the fact you haven't cited a single error message that you received is noted.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I think the MyCleanPC spam went away soon after I started to push Xubuntu as a solution for really keeping a PC clean yet usable for web surfing.
Clean, precise, pangolin-powered. MyCleanPC.
Among name-brand desktop and laptop PCs for the home and home office market, which brand is best for longevity?
Hmmm... Well, he should of course try it out before installing it. Most distros will run from the CD or DVD and allow you to see your Windows files and see if you can connect to the inetrnet, there are still a few devices out there without proper drivers.
Free Martian Whores!
I came here expecting a few pithy but in-the-long-run helpful "install Linux you fucking retard newbie" type comments, and instead get serious recommendations about Windows software, almost as though people actually use it! Unbelievable.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You might want to check this one out here. :|
Matousec Is a pretty much trusted and sought after penetration tester's group though I as an individual cannot confirm if they're legit or not (no offence Matousec)
Free? Is wasted computer troubleshooting time free? Buy ESET Smart Suite and be done with it. For Windows, you will easily break even in time saved! Plus your computer will run faster since most of ESET 's heavy lifting is written in assembly language.
Do the things any intelligent network administrator will tell you to do.
First, most important, keep offsite backups of your data. You should be doing this anyway, even if you have the best anti-virus software in the world, because anti-virus fundamentally cannot protect you from hard drive failure or a building fire. (Yes, the latter *does* sometimes happen in college dorms.) If you've got someone you can trust (and vice versa) living in a different building, a good way to do backups is to each get a spare hard drive (or agree to each use only half the capacity of the smaller hard drive) and use an automated process (e.g., rsync -- I don't think Windows comes with this out of the box, but I'm sure there must be an equivalent available) to back up each other's data: thus, your computer has a spare drive with your friend's data, and your friend's computer has a spare drive with your data. Set it up to happen at a time of day when you're both either asleep or away from your computer.
Second, create a non-administrative user account and use it. Only use an account with admin privileges when you specifically need to do system administration tasks. The rest of the time, use a non-admin account. (If you're a Windows user, do *not* make your files "private". That sounds good on the face of it, but in practice it makes your data more difficult to recover if something goes wrong with your account. Ordinarily, you can just log in as administrator, create a new account, and copy your data over from the old account to the new one. If you tell Windows to make your files private, then you end up jumping through extra hoops your data back. Of course, you have backups, but they were probably made last week and so don't have the paper you wrote yesterday that's due tomorrow. It's important to have them, because in a real crunch they're all you've got, but ideally you want to avoid losing even the data since your last backup.)
Do not swap floppies with other students' computers or the school's, and if you're going to be using other kinds of removable media (CDs, USB Flash drives, whatever) you should set your BIOS to not boot from those media. Also, make very sure you turn off anything that runs programs from removable media by default (*cough* Windows AutoPlay *cough*). College campuses are often a festering cesspit of assorted malware. You do not want your computer to execute anything that comes from there. Oh, also don't execute anything that anybody sends you as an email attachment, ever. Data files are usually safe, but be sure you can tell the difference. (Among other things, if Windows Explorer is set to hide extensions of known file types from you -- which I think is the default lately -- that's very bad. Uncheck that box immediately.)
*Do* install the security updates and service packs that have been released for your operating system. Use the system's built-in automatic update facility if possible.
Only install software that you obtain from the people who created it. If you want to install the latest Internet Explorer, for example, go directly to Microsoft's website and get it from there. Do not get it from anywhere else. (This implies that if there's any commercial software you want, you should actually pay for it, or else use a genuinely-free alternative. Avoid warez. It's unsafe. For example, getting OpenOffice.org directly from www.openoffice.org is much safer than downloading a pirated cracked version of Microsoft Office.) Similarly, if you want to install Firefox, go to mozilla.org and get it from there. Do not install any executable software that you get from a third-party site, especially one with a disreputable-sounding name like awesomedownloadfiles.com or free.hackedsoftware.cc or www.mozilla.org.downloads.k2swongy9vidwl.info.
Finally, if you can possibly manage it, put an external hardware firewall between your computer and the campus network, and configure it to only forward the kinds of traffic you actually need and block everything else by defa
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Fuck off fanboi. I'm so sick of Linux apologists pretending there's nothing wrong with it.
Considering that I'm not running Lubuntu in a VM I'm not quite sure what your point is. I'm certainly not a troll. That was my experience last night. It seems to be working now but I won't take it for granted.
And just because someone posts something you disagree with doesn't mean they are stupid. I have been using Linux distros on and off since 1998 and the quality has dropped pretty dramatically in the last 5 years or so. Feel free to pretend otherwise. It won't stop it being true and it won't stop users avoiding it in droves.
Did I suddenly forget how to read? Your previous post was a diatribe of negativity and laying sole blame on the software - when it could be any number of reasons for your obscenely bad luck with the simple installation of a platform and associated software, when it could as easily have been a flipped bit in RAM or other hardware issue that the attempted configuration just happened to trip on, or something as simple as a bad configuration.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I apologize. What I meant was that Macs do get malware (though not necessarily viruses (in practice)).
Not a problem. And, in retrospect, I was being a bit of a pedant for no good reason, so I apologize for that as well.
Do you mean to imply that the original comment was, in fact, not a serious comment, but a sarcastic one?
I fix computers for a living, and even tho we as a retailer sell other AV's, MSE is usually the first thing that gets installed and is the only AV I can recommend; That being said, you are always at risk of getting infected; right now there are 2 java 0-days out and microsofts IE 6/7/8 failure, even tho it was patched friday, usually dropped via the blackhole exploit kit) will get you infected even with the best AV running. even if norton/AVG/MSE/watever picks up the trojan, the dropper is still on the machine. (usually somewhere in the appdata, possibly explorer TMP) tldr; No 100%,there are no free ipads on the internet
You should not. Being incorrect is bad and should be avoided. If anything, I should thank you for making me aware of my error.
I have been using Linux distros on and off since 1998 and the quality has dropped pretty dramatically in the last 5 years or so.
That is weird, considering the huge numbers of persons who have tried some Linux distro in the last 5 years and have stayed with it and keep upgrading it every time a new version is released. Their behavior demonstrates they think the quality has been good and has been improving.
So evidently what parent post means by "quality" is something very different than what most people think of as "quality". Author of parent post is apparently speaking in one of those confusing foreign tongues whose words look and sound like English words but mean something completely different. You know, like the language of the astroturfers or the Trollspeak tongue, or one of the languages like those.
Will
Funny, I just click the "install mp3 codecs" checkbox at install time. If you didn't do that, just search "mp3" in software center.
Speaking of keygens... my sister got a virus years ago through an Adobe Photoshop keygen.
No really, this isn't a 'arrg matey' moment as if Microsoft made a decent product they wouldn't have to screw us a second time with paying a license fee to correct their lack of security in the product in the first place.
As far as i'm concerned i'm entitled to it as an already paying customer.
---- Booth was a patriot ----