What are peoples thoughts on running AV software these days?

I did a small experiment... since I'm signed up for the vista beta and will be re-installing anyways in the near future, I backed up all my data, and simply uninstalled onecare live about a month ago(it was fucking up my firewall anyways). Since then I haven't run any kind of A/V software locally.

Today I used 2 different "online" AV scanners and was completely clean. Therein lies my basic assumption... if you're smart about where you go on the internet, and have a good browser that blocks shit from being automatically run on your machine (I use avant browser personally) then you'll be pretty safe and save some pretty taxed resources in the process.

1/29/2006 10:03:05 PM

You need a good virus scanner. You don't have to keep on-demand scan on but you can always just schedule a once-a-week full scan of your hard disk overnight.

"Better safe than sorry."

1/29/2006 10:17:01 PM

i agree about not being a dumbass online. there are a few rare times where you might want to dl something suspicious or click something you shouldnt, but other than that i agree with you. same basically goes for ad-aware and the like.

[Edited on January 29, 2006 at 10:26 PM. Reason : but yeah, it doesnt hurt ot have it in the background at all, specially when it is free]

1/29/2006 10:25:52 PM

i haven't run it in forever because of the ill effects it conveys on a system/connection when gaming - it's small, but enough to notice if you're good

i've stopped gaming, but everything is issue free without antivirus running so i never bothered with it again

i run a scan every now and then, but i've never found anything and i've downloaded the entire internet...twice

1/29/2006 10:29:04 PM

yeah I think unless you're not good at being safe, a virus scanner is mainly good to be run like once a month and to be run directly on files you're unsure about

1/29/2006 11:34:00 PM

It isn't going to make a difference in your day to day browsing, and when you fire up a game, just turn it off. Makes no sense not having it as an extra layer of protection, the cost isn't that great.

1/29/2006 11:56:24 PM

^ Yes, and again, you don't need to have on-demand scan on all the time.

1/30/2006 10:08:47 AM

ok lets think about this logically

antivirus- free, can run when sleeping, only have to use lets say once every 2 weeks(IF YOU ARE A SMART INTERNETER)

not running antivirus- free, cant run while sleeping, might not have any virus's if you are a safe interneter, might get a virus accidentally one time and fucks up your shit

yeah i'll go with the antivirus

and a little blip about spyware shit....i didnt run adaware for about 35 days until the other day and i was clean, even after updating the definitions and shit, spybot found 2 things

1/30/2006 10:17:20 AM

I don't run it, and no problems thus far. I've had AV software for years and years in the past and it never found anything despite constant updates.

1/30/2006 10:23:21 AM