6 ms·

I don't understand why people even bother with additional anti-virus for Windows nowadays. Windows defender is updated very frequently and is running in the ba

I don't understand why people even bother with additional anti-virus for Windows nowadays. Windows defender is updated very frequently and is running in the background at all times. Also, unless you are using some shady software e.g. cracks etc.. it is not that easy to catch a computer virus nowadays.

Outpox 10y ago
Yep, as long as you stick with an adblocker in your browser and avoid downloading shady things it's pretty safe.
- jdhendrickson 10y ago
  I would add the use of noscript or a similar white listing javascript blocker would probably be of use as well.
  - dahauns 10y ago
    uMatrix is very nice, a whitelisting everything blocker with a really intuitive interface.
  - smsm42 10y ago
    I don't see how non-professional can browse the net with JS blocker on. Most of the sites nowdays just won't work and average user won't have any way to figure out why.
  - ndesaulniers 10y ago
    https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/5orvy5/late_2016_rbs_qhd_linux_damage_report/ https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/5orvy5/late_2016_rbs...
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> I don't understand why people even bother with additional anti-virus for Windows nowadays. Old habits die hard. Especially among non-tech-savvy people, who in the past were told so many times that antivirus is essential because Windows is easy to infect, that it's hard now to explain to them that the built-in Windows Defender is good enough.
- CamelCaseName 10y ago
  Absolutely. I just had the pleasure of being lectured on how Macs don't get viruses yesterday.
- AntivirusExpert 10y ago
  Good enough for you, perhaps. You can't teach people to be sensible and 100% vigilant, and when it comes to AV software I think that independent lab test scores tell the story about MS Defender: https://bestantivirus.reviews/tools/test-results-calculator?purposeId=1&groupId=1&startDate=2015-1-1&endDate=2017-1-1&companyId=16 https://bestantivirus.reviews/tools/test-results-calculator?...
rubber_duck 10y ago
>Windows defender is updated very frequently and is running in the background at all times. And will often suck your IO and bring your computer to a crawl during say big builds, extracts, installations, etc. I just keep it disabled.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- RugnirViking 10y ago
  Pray, tell: how have you managed to keep it disabled? It always seems to re-enable for me
  - rubber_duck 10y ago
    Constantly disabling it when I notice it unfortunately :(
ionised 10y ago
Windows Defender has been shown time and time again in comparatives to be not much better than nothing. Its only plus point was it's low resource requirement.
- romanovcode 10y ago
  Heh, those comparatives more often than not are sponsored by AV companies. That's why every comparative will show different Nr. 1 AV software.
  - ionised 10y ago
    As far as I know, these guys are totally independent; https://www.av-comparatives.org/about-us/ https://www.av-comparatives.org/about-us/ I may be wrong, but I can't find any info as to their sponsors other than universities and volunteer researchers. And I'm not sure how that addresses what I said about Defender being borderline useless, because they come up short across most tests from what I remember. Unless it has drastically improved in the last year.
    - cvwright 10y ago
      I think AV Comparatives are independent -- at least they were when I last had to read up on all this several years ago. At the time (2010ish), they even had a few reports where they showed that pretty much all the AV products were quite bad. Either they failed to detect a large portion of real malware, and/or they were a huge drain on the system's resources.
      - krylon 10y ago
        > Either they failed to detect a large portion of real malware, and/or they were a huge drain on the system's resources. Those aren't mutually exclusive... ;-) Some things never change, I guess. As a Windows admin who uses Unix-ish systems exclusively at home, I am a little clueless sometimes. When using AV software on our computers, I can at least point to that and say I did what I could (be reasonably expected to do), but whenever I read what people who really know about IT security have to say about the AV industry, I get the feeling it's all just a bunch of charlatans and snake oil peddlers. But the latter is a little difficult to explain to my boss without sounding like a tinfoil-hat-wearing lunatic.
rwmj 10y ago
In my experience it's because of slavishly following PCI-DSS standards (and probably other similar things). For example section 5.1 says: 5.1 Deploy anti-virus software on all systems commonly affected by malicious software (particularly personal computers and servers). Presumably unless the software was explicitly "deployed" (rather than being bundled with Windows), they don't feel like they are complying.
- decwakeboarder 10y ago
  IANAL, but I'd assume that Windows Defender is "deployed" to the system at the time of "deploying" the OS.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Windows defender is sufficient for PCI-DSS compliance.
rando444 10y ago
You don't have to be using shady software.. All you have to do is browse the internet. As long as code execution vulnerabilities in web browsers and common plugins (adobe, etc.) exist.. and they still do, 'drive-by downloading' will continue to spread malware, adware, and ransomware.
- veeti 10y ago
  Antivirus itself is a huge attack surface for remote code execution. For example, see Kaspersky's atrocious track record so far: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/list?can=1&q=kaspersky&colspec=ID+Type+Status+Priority+Milestone+Owner+Summary&cells=ids https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/list?can=1&q...
- cpncrunch 10y ago
  You should disable flash by default these days. I haven't come across a site in months that requires it.
elahd 10y ago
Windows Defender misses a lot of malware and drive by toolbar installs. I bought licenses of ESET Smart Security for everyone in my immediate family about 3 years ago. They were on Windows Defender before. The number of calls about "my internet isn't working" has dropped to 0 since I rolled out ESET.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  Given that everyone lives on a browser and the most outside of that they usually need is a browser, a dedicated media player and a PDF reader, I installed them Linux and cut tech support down to a single call so far: A 5 year old install that needed an upgrade to support a 3G modem. No license management needed.
smsm42 10y ago
It's pretty easy: a. Troyans aka "Letter from IRS" promising to jail you unless you open it. Yes, a lot of people still fall for that. b. Browser vulns if you didn't update your browser and visit some weird sites. c. Plugin vulns such as flash/java - a lot of content, esp. video, still requires flash. Though I think most cybercrime moved on from old-fashioned viruses to botnets and ransomware (not strictly correct since I'm mixing delivery and monetization here but I hope you get what I mean), since you can make much more money with it. And given the frequency I read about those in the media, they are not rare at all.

Outpox 10y ago

Yep, as long as you stick with an adblocker in your browser and avoid downloading shady things it's pretty safe.

jdhendrickson 10y ago
I would add the use of noscript or a similar white listing javascript blocker would probably be of use as well.
- dahauns 10y ago
  uMatrix is very nice, a whitelisting everything blocker with a really intuitive interface.
- smsm42 10y ago
  I don't see how non-professional can browse the net with JS blocker on. Most of the sites nowdays just won't work and average user won't have any way to figure out why.
- ndesaulniers 10y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/5orvy5/late_2016_rbs_qhd_linux_damage_report/ https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/5orvy5/late_2016_rbs...

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> I don't understand why people even bother with additional anti-virus for Windows nowadays. Old habits die hard. Especially among non-tech-savvy people, who in the past were told so many times that antivirus is essential because Windows is easy to infect, that it's hard now to explain to them that the built-in Windows Defender is good enough.

CamelCaseName 10y ago
Absolutely. I just had the pleasure of being lectured on how Macs don't get viruses yesterday.
AntivirusExpert 10y ago
Good enough for you, perhaps. You can't teach people to be sensible and 100% vigilant, and when it comes to AV software I think that independent lab test scores tell the story about MS Defender: https://bestantivirus.reviews/tools/test-results-calculator?purposeId=1&groupId=1&startDate=2015-1-1&endDate=2017-1-1&companyId=16 https://bestantivirus.reviews/tools/test-results-calculator?...

rubber_duck 10y ago

>Windows defender is updated very frequently and is running in the background at all times. And will often suck your IO and bring your computer to a crawl during say big builds, extracts, installations, etc. I just keep it disabled.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
RugnirViking 10y ago
Pray, tell: how have you managed to keep it disabled? It always seems to re-enable for me
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  Constantly disabling it when I notice it unfortunately :(

ionised 10y ago

Windows Defender has been shown time and time again in comparatives to be not much better than nothing. Its only plus point was it's low resource requirement.

romanovcode 10y ago
Heh, those comparatives more often than not are sponsored by AV companies. That's why every comparative will show different Nr. 1 AV software.
- ionised 10y ago
  As far as I know, these guys are totally independent; https://www.av-comparatives.org/about-us/ https://www.av-comparatives.org/about-us/ I may be wrong, but I can't find any info as to their sponsors other than universities and volunteer researchers. And I'm not sure how that addresses what I said about Defender being borderline useless, because they come up short across most tests from what I remember. Unless it has drastically improved in the last year.
  - cvwright 10y ago
    I think AV Comparatives are independent -- at least they were when I last had to read up on all this several years ago. At the time (2010ish), they even had a few reports where they showed that pretty much all the AV products were quite bad. Either they failed to detect a large portion of real malware, and/or they were a huge drain on the system's resources.
    - krylon 10y ago
      > Either they failed to detect a large portion of real malware, and/or they were a huge drain on the system's resources. Those aren't mutually exclusive... ;-) Some things never change, I guess. As a Windows admin who uses Unix-ish systems exclusively at home, I am a little clueless sometimes. When using AV software on our computers, I can at least point to that and say I did what I could (be reasonably expected to do), but whenever I read what people who really know about IT security have to say about the AV industry, I get the feeling it's all just a bunch of charlatans and snake oil peddlers. But the latter is a little difficult to explain to my boss without sounding like a tinfoil-hat-wearing lunatic.

rwmj 10y ago

In my experience it's because of slavishly following PCI-DSS standards (and probably other similar things). For example section 5.1 says: 5.1 Deploy anti-virus software on all systems commonly affected by malicious software (particularly personal computers and servers). Presumably unless the software was explicitly "deployed" (rather than being bundled with Windows), they don't feel like they are complying.

decwakeboarder 10y ago
IANAL, but I'd assume that Windows Defender is "deployed" to the system at the time of "deploying" the OS.
dogma1138 10y ago
Windows defender is sufficient for PCI-DSS compliance.

rando444 10y ago

You don't have to be using shady software.. All you have to do is browse the internet. As long as code execution vulnerabilities in web browsers and common plugins (adobe, etc.) exist.. and they still do, 'drive-by downloading' will continue to spread malware, adware, and ransomware.

veeti 10y ago
Antivirus itself is a huge attack surface for remote code execution. For example, see Kaspersky's atrocious track record so far: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/list?can=1&q=kaspersky&colspec=ID+Type+Status+Priority+Milestone+Owner+Summary&cells=ids https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/list?can=1&q...
cpncrunch 10y ago
You should disable flash by default these days. I haven't come across a site in months that requires it.

elahd 10y ago

Windows Defender misses a lot of malware and drive by toolbar installs. I bought licenses of ESET Smart Security for everyone in my immediate family about 3 years ago. They were on Windows Defender before. The number of calls about "my internet isn't working" has dropped to 0 since I rolled out ESET.

mixedCase 10y ago
Given that everyone lives on a browser and the most outside of that they usually need is a browser, a dedicated media player and a PDF reader, I installed them Linux and cut tech support down to a single call so far: A 5 year old install that needed an upgrade to support a 3G modem. No license management needed.

smsm42 10y ago

It's pretty easy: a. Troyans aka "Letter from IRS" promising to jail you unless you open it. Yes, a lot of people still fall for that. b. Browser vulns if you didn't update your browser and visit some weird sites. c. Plugin vulns such as flash/java - a lot of content, esp. video, still requires flash. Though I think most cybercrime moved on from old-fashioned viruses to botnets and ransomware (not strictly correct since I'm mixing delivery and monetization here but I hope you get what I mean), since you can make much more money with it. And given the frequency I read about those in the media, they are not rare at all.