A non-obtrusive Antivirus for a saavy user

[o2dazone]

I tried AVG, hearing so many great things about it. Unfortunately, I could not get it to shut off completely. (There was a service running that did nothing when attempting to End Process it, and had no brute force method in services.msc). I don't turn my machine on and off a whole lot (I'm a standby man...maybe reboot once a week), but I would like it so that it wasn't running all the time.

Really, all I need is a lightweight antivirus that I can use to scan individual big files. I use Jotti for smaller files, but wouldn't mind something local, to scan bigger files. I don't need this AV to run in the background, or to sniff my email, or even to keep "spyware" off my machine or any of those wonderful resource gobbling applications. I just need to be able to right click an exe, rar or zip and scan it for viruses. When it's done, it dismisses itself and doesn't run in the background.

Any recommendations?

[watduzhkstand4]

I use NOD32 and they have these legit usernames and passwords that they give out so you don't have to pay. I never got a virus or spyware and I download pirated games all the time.

[o2dazone]

Thanks, I'll check it out. I'm about a week away from formatting, so once I find something I like, I'll end up adding it to my nLite build of XP.

Anymore suggestions?

[FunkTrooper]

Microsoft Security Essentials seems pretty good. I'm using it right now, and I've been quite impressed with it.  The only thing is, it will only silently update if you have automatic updates enabled for all of Windows (which I don't).  Mine is set to let me know when there are updates for Windows, which means that everyday Windows Update pops up trying to get me to download virus definitions.
(Get it here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Microsoft-Security-Essentials.shtml)

What I was using before (and what I'll probably switch back to) is Symantec Endpoint Protection.  This is Symantec's enterprise grade security product with antivirus, zero day protection, and a firewall.  It automatically updates and never gets in your way, but it still finds viruses.  Even though you have to pay for it, it never expires. It has no product keys or activation or any other "DRM", it just installs and works forever.  It's meant for large businesses but individuals can buy it too.
(Get it here: http://shop.symantecstore.com/store/symnasmb/en_US/DisplayProductDetailsSmbPage/ThemeID.106400/productID.80779800)

[o2dazone]

Interesting
I'll give those both a testdrive despite my natural reaction to recoil in fear when seeing the word Symantec lol

I don't run Windows Updates either, just as long as it's not chugging along in the background, or if I can turn that ability off, I'm fine.

[wellington1869]

o2 why dont you like virus protection or OS patches?

[o2dazone]

I've been without an antivirus for close to 5 years...I use Adblock Plus and Noscript - and all my mail is filtered through Gmail. I never get so drunk to the point that I would just randomly run stuff on my machine unless I knew what it was. I'm not saying I'm bulletproof, I'm just sharp enough to never get a virus (and I download from some very shady places at times). I just don't need an antivirus scanning everything that goes in and out of my computer...it's just not necessary. On occasion, I do need something that will scan an individual file that might be too big to submit to online file virus scanners.

As for OS patches. Same reason...because most Windows updates are "critical patches" that do things like fix vulnerabilities in stuff I don't use (telnet, netmeeting, adobe PDF viewers), I don't bother. I use this version of Windows XP, and it's recent 'enough' for me. And don't get me wrong, I'm a huge security nut (truecrypting my jump drives lol), I just don't find it necessary...and so far so good.

[wellington1869]

thats an interesting approach, and if it works for you thats great and all; but I take it you're doing it this way though mostly on "principle" as opposed to necessity (in other words its not because of any perceived "performance hit" on your cpu or anything that an actively scanning antivirus program would bring).

[o2dazone]

Well, I'm kind of big on not letting sh!t running all the time. In fact, I even turn off my printer spooler (the service that collects available printers) if I'm not using it. While it's a small amount of memory, I just don't like it being there...

Antiviruses have caused me grief in the passed, and while it shows that it takes a small footprint, it still is scanning everything being moved in and out of the machine, and that's what bothers me the most. Last I need is something to be bottlenecking because the AV software can't keep up.

But in all, if I can circumvent having an application running all the time, by just being a better user, then so be it.

[lal]

Don't want to start a flamewar but also I don't want anyone get a wrong impression of geekhackers.  I'm sure most of us know that the three most important security principles are (especially when running a Microsoft OS):
1. Keep all software current (updates!)
2. Use a good virus scanner (which means one with near real time signature updates), and
3. Make backups regularly.
Not doing the first two is just careless and I even think there should be some law to punish people for letting their machines turn into spam relaying zombie bots.

Not offending you personally o2dazone.  If it works out for you, alright.  I wish you luck though.  You'll need it >

[talis]

I'll throw another vote in for nod32, powerful set of features, and a lot of room for customization which was the biggest selling point for me.  Relatively inexpensive as well.

I run it pretty much as an on-demand virus scan on the local file system, with the real time scan running for the web.

[o2dazone]

Oh, I'm not offended - to each his/her own. I'm a firm believer that the first step to being secure is being knowledgeable. If I can use this knowledge to prevent me from having to manage an antivirus and updates, then it saves me more time. Which is time I can use for more fun things like reading forums, or doing freelance.

I'll give nod32 a run on the weekend- sounds pretty good.

[timw4mail]

I may be nuts, but I hate virus scanners of any type...

I've never had a real problem with viruses, so I don't worry too much.

The reason these continuous scanning options exist is because the average user is not savvy enough to know what is safe, and what isn't.

My thought is, if I can keep up to date,  don't download things from suspicious places, and block advertising, I'm not likely to have a virus/malware issue.

Then there's those "new" computers from the big companies...with the effect of a virus attack at startup because of all the useless junk pre-installed...sometimes I wish I could just read machine code, and delete all the fluff from programs...

[ch_123]

I agree. In all the years I've owned computers, most of them were spent without any AV. During all that time, I've only ever had three viruses, and two were directly the result of my own stupidity (involving software piracy in my reckless formative years =P)... Having some cop on should always be the first line of defense.

[itlnstln]

I use Symantec AV Corporate edition, and I have never had a virus problem.  It's not anywhere near as crappy as Norton.  I don't put myself in situations, normally, that expose me to virii, but you never know what hitches a ride on torrents and such.

[sixty]

Oh, I'm not offended - to each his/her own. I'm a firm believer that the first step to being secure is being knowledgeable. If I can use this knowledge to prevent me from having to manage an antivirus and updates, then it saves me more time. Which is time I can use for more fun things like reading forums, or doing freelance.

I'll give nod32 a run on the weekend- sounds pretty good.

I completely agree. Personally I have not been running any anti virus software since early 2000s as well.

It just hit me back then when I first installed Norton Antivirus and it made my system much slower than any virus had ever made it

If you know what you are doing and close out holes in the OS itself (as in some major Microsoft patches from SP etc) then there is no point to have a virus scanner running constantly in the background, slowing your system down.

I only open trusted files and don't run pirate software on my main machine. If something is fishy I check it on a VM first!

Edit: Nod32 is actually pretty decent though, there is a portable edition too. I am a big fan of portable software and like my Windows as clean and untouched as possible, so that's a big plus for NOD32.

[ch_123]

Is Linux an option here?

[o2dazone]

Linux would be an option if I could get Photoshop to work in Wine

[ch_123]

What about running PS inside a VM and use Linux for everything else? Although, there are performance penalties for using VMs, which may or may not be a problem depending on whether you run some of the more system intensive features or not.

[o2dazone]

I do actually, all my photo editing is done with Smart Objects, which retain the original size of everything. That's not to say I can't dual boot though - considering I almost never go back to Photoshop once I start coding something.

But then again, the main reason for all this would to be protected by some suspicious files, and most anything I would need for Linux would be OSS, and not laden with viruses in the first place

[o2dazone]

Augh, now you have me wanting to dual boot my machine again damn you

[keyb_gr]

I've been running without any AV for years now... having an external router with firewall functionality helps a lot though. Update your browser once in a while and use a safe e-mail app (I'm mostly on webmail these days anyway), that's pretty much it. Oh, and all the autorun stuff is disabled here.

I don't have any mobile system that might be exposed to questionable WLANs though... I guess you're well advised to keep Windows up to date then.

[bsvP585hUO2Y6]

o2dazone writes:

> Linux would be an option if I could get Photoshop to work in Wine

What's wrong with The Gimp?

[ch_123]

Gimp isn't exactly the most intuitive program in the world... I prefer Krita for graphics editing in Linux, although I dont know how it stacks up feature wise compared with Gimp or PS.

[o2dazone]

The Gimp doesn't really support a lot of the advanced features that I use in Photoshop, like smart objects and smart filters. And when I'm doing print, it helps to do stuff in CMYK (I'm not sure if the gimp has implemented that...they didn't have it when I used it).

Anywho, it's getting a little off topic. I'll be trying NOD32 this weekend, along with a few others - still taking suggestions

[lal]

I know what I do and therefore don't need anti-virus.

Sigh.  Modern malware infects your system without you knowing just by browsing the web.  Even on respectable sites.  Even on geekhack.  Good article, German only, unfortunately:

http://www.heise.de/security/Einfallstor-Browser--/artikel/115254

[o2dazone]

you think I'm going to fall for that trick? That link has malware written all over it

[patrickgeekhack]

Avast?

[o2dazone]

Nice, Avast, forgot about that one thanks

[lal]

Web pages infect Windows PCs via new DirectShow hole

[Binge]

I am a fan of Malware's Bits and Bites & BitDefender 2009.

[o2dazone]

Web pages infect Windows PCs via new DirectShow hole

Yeah, ActiveX is full of vulnerabilities...who woulda thunkit

I've also heard of BitDefender, I'll have to give that a go sometime. I formatted my machine this weekend but not before trying out a few virus scanners. I ended up using Avast because funny enough, I was able to get it in a "no strings attached" portable version. So now it pops up when I need it to, without me needing to tick on/off a service. So I can safely scan a file via context menu, and when it's done scanning, I can close it with no background processing gobbling up all my precious memory

[jkkhop]

Believe or not, but I use, and have used for a long time, XP with SP1 equipped with only a firewall, which isn't up-to-date either (Outpost 3.5). I also have a lot of services disabled that are automatically started by default (14 processes after startup). I rarely install anything I don't know is 100% legit. If I forget the firewall off for a longer period of time, weird stuff pop up, other than that, never. Formatting and reinstalling everything is not much of an issue for me.

The reason I don't upgrade to SP2/SP3 is that it ruins the performance. I know people say there's no difference, but from my experience, there is. And that's enough for me to not upgrade. Antivirus is pretty much pointless, it never actually does anything except eats resources. I run an online virus scanner every now and then and they don't find squat.

[Rajagra]

Use a NAT router.
Do proper backups.
Scan manually for malware every now and again.
Install a free antivirus on machines you don't use for gaming.

That's where I am at the moment, I got Kapersky free from my bank and run it on the PC I use for web surfing.

Take whatever risks you are willing to accept with your own data, but you should at least make sure you don't let someone turn your computer into a zombie sending spam emails round the world.

[o2dazone]

Understandable. I ran a scan with Avast just to see how the software operated before I formatted. It's clean! This is after over a year of "unprotected" surfing.

Now that were talking about setups, I figure I would share mine. My only concern when I started this thread, was "Is there an AV I could use so that I didn't have to reinstall my OS immediately when getting hit with a virus." If I did get a virus, it would have to penetrate my headerless Truecrypt volume before it got to anything valuable. Everything that I need to "back up" are on Truecrypt volumes that are dismounted every time I go into Standby. Not that I'm terribly concerned about a law authority knocking on my door and confiscating my computers or anything...but having most stuff OTFE'd helps for situations like this. So all my software backups, movie backups, music, photos, freelance projects and a few registry tweaks, firefox profiles, fonts, etc are all on an encrypted external hdd, which is just about everything on my machine that I store (although if I were to lose about 80% of that due to a failed platter or something, I've got backups burned to DVD that I did about a month ago). Assuming I would have been struck with a virus the second I made this thread, I would have lost a few bookmarks, my recent Firefox history (oh no ) and anything that I was downloading at that very moment (which is probably nothing). Otherwise it's a quick 10 minute format before my system is clean and ready to use again (it helps to have a couple bat scripts that automate a few things for you like apply registry tweaks for icons, services, and move some fonts around, install a couple apps, etc). It allows me to format once every 3-4 months, if the situation arises.

[lal]

Just want to mention that at the moment malware code is being executed (i.e. the system gets infected) you can not trust the system anymore.  Once a virus or the like is active it has complete control over the system and can effectively hide itself from scanners, deactivate them, make them display false results et cetera.  So installing anti-virus on a suspect system is pointless, you'd have to scan the disk from another known clean system.

That's also why doing on-demand scans from time to time is not enough and even superfluous.  The point of anti-virus software is to prevent the first time execution of malware, so a real-time scanner *has* to be running constantly.

[CX23882]

Since I got my first Windows 95-based PC in 1997, I ran anti-virus software - ThunderBYTE Anti-Virus (TBAV). It worked well and was unintrusive, and never noticeably slowed my PC.

My next PC, in 2000, ran Windows 98SE and came bundled with McAfee VirusScan 4.0. To begin with, this also worked great, the DAT updates never caused problems. There was a bit of slowdown, but nothing too bad. Then came the engine update and I came close to throwing that PC down the stairs. McAfee turned a brand new Pentium III PC into something that performed worse than the P133 it replaced. The whole system would freeze for several seconds when doing certain tasks (open a folder with a zip file - bang, freeze). It never locked up and had to be reset, it was just continual pauses.

I was offered a free update to McAfee VirusScan 5.0, and I downloaded it. Since this used the same engine as the updated v4.0, it performed just as bad, but also suffered from several new bugs and caused various blue screens of death.

Not long after that I updated to Windows XP. VirusScan 5.0 on XP was equally as appalling. It no longer caused the cursor freezes, but the system was still unresponsive and generally unstable. Insert an Iomega Zip disc into the drive - BSOD. I gave up after several weeks of battling with that god-awful software.

I went with Norton AV2002, and it made a refreshing change from McAfee (or McCrappy as we called it). But after 2002, Norton began to go downhill and became a resource-hog like McAfee. That's a lie, it was like McAfee back in 2001 - from v7.0 onwards McAfee became such bloated crapware that I think anybody would struggle to match them in its crappyness (which was a shame because VirusScan Enterprise 8.0 was a reasonable product). Nobody wants their PC to be hijacked, but then nobody wants their PC to perform like crap and be crash-happy either.


Since 2004 I've run without anti-virus software, and touch-wood I've not had a single virus infection. But as careful as you are, you never know if somebody is going to come and "check their PowerPoint presentation" on your PC and plug in their virus-infected USB memory stick. So I've been trying various anti-virus packages (freeware and various trials) and so far I'm really liking the Norton 2009 range. I've got the trial of Norton Internet Security 2009 installed, and it's fantastic. I can't notice any system slowdown that can be attributed to Norton, no annoying nag screens, no weird firewall glitches. It just works. I'll keep it installed until the trial runs out, but I think I'll probably end up buying this one. None of the free antivirus packages gave such a good impression, and Norton isn't expensive if you're installing on 3 family PCs.

So for now, this is a thumbs up for NAV2009/NIS2009.

[VCheeZ]

I used to be a big AVG fan, but after trying NOD32, Avast, Kaspersky for the last couple of years.. I have begun using Avira Antivir for my personal, and customer's systems. It tests at the top of the class, it is free, and the footprint is the most minimal I have seen for it's level of protection.

[zwmalone]

I'm gonna second Avira.  I slipstreamed it into my install DVD so I don't have to worry about the problems lal was talking about.  At this moment Avira is using just under 8MB of RAM.  Not bad.

[karlito]

http://www.virustotal.com/

dont need to install anything and it scans w/ every virus scanner o_O...

[o2dazone]

Nice! I've been using something similar but it only did 15mb files
VCheez, I'll give Avira a go, I've never heard of it before, sounds pretty great thanks

[ch_123]

Been using Avira for a bit. The free version has that annoying popup screen when you update, but it's easy to disable it.

[danbee]

Surprised nobody has mentioned ClamWin.

[o2dazone]

I recently formatted my mothers machine thanks to Clamwin. It does a horrible job at sniffing out false positives and telling me what is actually a virus. Scanned a zip with Clamwin that said it was infected. Submitted it to VirusTotal, and it popped up clean. Scanned another zip with Clamwin, showed clean. Installed, and I could hear the hard-drive being written to almost immediately. Opened the task manager, and saw all the awful disguises of trojans and malware (winsvc.exe, all that good stuff). Thankfully she only plays Solitaire on it, so within an hour I had her back up and running.

Sorry to slam foss like that...but it didn't do it's job

[ch_123]

If she's only playing Solitaire, why not put on Ubuntu?

[justin]

I use this awesome anti-virus software. Have never had a single problem in 8 years of downloading & running all sorts of shady crap. It's called Mac OS X. Works great.

[ only teasing, flamewar not intended ]





In all honesty, I run the latest Leopard releases, Ubuntu (Karmic Alpha) & Windows 7 (Prereleases), and haven't had problems on any of them, mainly due to common sense practices.

[o2dazone]

Oh trust me, if Final Cut Pro wasn't required as the only technology I'm allowed to use from work/home I would have moved on long ago

[microsoft windows]

I use Common Sense Antivirus (CSAV), where I simply don't go to find free credit reports, don't claim prizes for being the 10000th visitor, and don't find that trick for white teeth. CSAV works great and I have never gotten a virus in the many years I have been using it.

[ch_123]

Problem here is the rarity of common sense amongst the ignorant masses... They find it a bit too complex to use >.>

[Lenny_Nero]

Problem here is the rarity of common sense amongst the ignorant masses...

That is the enemy of security, there are too many persons in charge that tell the coders that something needs to be turned on out of the box, because the user does not need to spend time looking or learning how to turn that something on.

As for running AV all of the time there is no need, then I only run win 2000 for my M$ installs, and have a 6'ish year old install on a box that runs 24/7 and gets a re-boot every month ..if it needs it or not.

It is only running an AMD 2600 XP (2GHz) chip but the box boots at ~200 MB, it does take almost 60 seconds to start, but page files and registry are re-built and de-fragged every boot. Also it has a lot running in the background as its got my TV cards and does quite a lot of media serving as well as being my local NNTP server. As said by others if you dont need a service turn it off. I have a .bat file that turns off all unneeded services on a LAN connected NT 5x box ...I will find if people want the use of.

Web sites cant use any Active X nasties because they are blocked at the modem and again at the main router that is an old 466 MHz box that is a basic hardware firewall/router/print/e-mail server.

For security sake a software firewall on an interweb connected box is about the most important thing and should be first on any list. It matters not if you get infected with something, if it cant phone home and get or give info. I also dont update anything unless there is a good reason M$ updates included I dont see the point of new software if it cant do anything more than the old stuff.

If you do get hit by a real virus the best thing to do is format and start again. I am another that has used Acronis True Image for ages and have a stack of backups on DVD+RW. I also always multi boot every box so you can work on the OS from the other side just in case you have to get something back, and that is how I run any AV and malware scans. I also keep the registry backed up and go thru it by hand every few weeks to clear it out, and make copies of all the Master Boot records ...again just in case.

But then I grew up with a dad that ran some of the first big computers in this country with the IBM 1401 in 1960 then 360/30's and 360/60's in '64 and never really stopped after that.
As a kid I learnt to write on punch cards and had "backup or die" drummed into me from an early age