On 5/12/2020 2:12 AM, Diesel wrote:
Ken Blake
Sun, 10 May 2020 18:52:11 GMT
in alt.computer.workshop, wrote:

On 5/10/2020 10:52 AM, Shadow wrote:

FWIW, I haven't used a resident AV for ages.... and I'm on
XP. Safe hex is the way to go with any OS.



As far as I'm concerned, there are *four* ways to go, and none of
them should be omitted:

Safe Hex
Antivirus program
Antispyware program
Firewall

What you do is of course up to you, not me, but as far as I'm
concerned, relying just on safe hex is foolhardy. There's always a
chance that you will make a mistake some day when you're very
tired, have had too much to drink, having just had a fight with
your spouse, etc.

Antivirus and antispyware programs can give you a very false sense of
security and cause you to become lax or otherwise lazy in your safe
hex practices.


For some people (but not everyone), what you say is correct. That's why
I don't recommend such software *instead* of safe hex, but in addition
to it. Safe Hex still needs to be stressed.


Remember, those apps can only protect you from things
they're already aware of, and with limited succes, unknown varients
of the same families.



Of course.



Those apps also introduce infection vector points for malware. And,
they've been exploited to do exactly that on several occasions. They
require as low level access as is possible to your system. And, as a
side effect, unknown to them malware has, and will continue on
occasion, to take advantage of the access rights the av/am has and go
places on your machine a modern OS would have otherwise prevented
with it's own security. Those same apps have been known from time to
time to cause unwanted interference with the OS andor other apps on
your machine as well as occasional data loss.

In all cases, those apps do place a bit of a drain on your system
resources, even if you don't visually notice it, your machine does.


A bit? Yes. A lot? No. At least not for the better software. And the
small drain is worth it for the extra protection.


--
Ken