Antivirus programs

On Fri, 9 Dec 2016 12:46:34 -0800, T wrote:

The trick is to look over several (6+) months and see who is
consistent. Anyone can have a good month.

I understand. But to be honest: avast hasn't been triggered by a virus
for many years now AND I haven't been infected. I ask myself a lot: do I
really need/want an antivirus program? I do homebanking and my bank
advises me to use an AV program. I think that's about the main reason.
But even if I were to be "hacked", my bank will pay the money bank since
in Belgium the banks are responsible for the safety of netbanking.

--
s|b

s|b wrote:
On Fri, 9 Dec 2016 12:46:34 -0800, T wrote:

The trick is to look over several (6+) months and see who is
consistent. Anyone can have a good month.

I understand. But to be honest: avast hasn't been triggered by a
virus for many years now AND I haven't been infected. I ask myself a
lot: do I really need/want an antivirus program? I do homebanking and
my bank advises me to use an AV program. I think that's about the
main reason. But even if I were to be "hacked", my bank will pay the
money bank since in Belgium the banks are responsible for the safety
of netbanking.


You could use a Linux DVD to do your banking. It's hard to hack a DVD.

On Thu, 08 Dec 2016 07:18:58 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:

I haven't had a virus *infection* for the last 10 years, but I get
about 10 e-mails a day with malware attachments. The most popular one
at the moment has been JSlocky downloader. Avast warns me about half
of them.

My provider scans my e-mails for spam and viruses for free. Sometimes
spam gets through, but they haven't missed a virus. That's one of the
reasons why I don't use avast's Mail Shield.

--
s|b

On Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:58:33 +0100, Z wrote:

You could use a Linux DVD to do your banking. It's hard to hack a DVD.

I'll keep this in mind when policy changes and clients are responsible.

--
s|b

"Z" wrote

| I understand. But to be honest: avast hasn't been triggered by a
| virus for many years now AND I haven't been infected. I ask myself a
| lot: do I really need/want an antivirus program? I do homebanking and
| my bank advises me to use an AV program. I think that's about the
| main reason. But even if I were to be "hacked", my bank will pay the
| money bank since in Belgium the banks are responsible for the safety
| of netbanking.
|
|
| You could use a Linux DVD to do your banking. It's hard to hack a DVD.

That doesn't cover vulnerablities in communication
or the bank database. Malware installing keystroke
loggers is pretty much the only local risk for online
banking. The main risk is online. There have been
plenty of problems with https/ssl.

I haven't used AV for many years, but I also wouldn't
do online banking. And I rarely enable javascript. If I
want to buy from an online company I call on the phone.
If they don't have a phone number I don't want to do
business with them, anyway, because that will mean
there's no direct customer support if I have problems
with the product.

I'm planning to go renew my drivers license this week.
It's not a big deal to just go to the Registry. I can renew
online, but do I really want to trust that the state of MA
has their act together enough to protect the transaction?
No. They don't even have their act together enough to
send my registration sticker on time. $200 for two years
to buy a 5 cent sticker, yet they can't seem to mail it
to me in less than a month. And I'm still trying to figure
out what happened to my EZPass application from 7
weeks ago. *One should never assume any organization
is competent, especially when it comes to computerization.*

I also avoid credit cards where possible. Gas station
skimmers and ATM skimmers have become common.
Companies have had their databases stolen. It's true
that credit cards are backed up, for the most part,
but debit cards are a different matter. In addition to
costing all of us a lot of money due to merchant fees,
most debit cards have limited protection, if any.
Commercial accounts are usually not protected.
Regular accounts usually have protection only if a
suspicious charge is reported promptly. A lot of people
get their accounts drained while assuming they're
protected.

Most of this has little or nothing to do with using a
computer. Probably the biggest risk on computers
these days is ransomware. AV can help with that,
though there are always new, unknown bugs using
0-day exploits. Avoiding that is more about avoiding
unsafe browser habits and avoiding unknown downloads
or links. A DVD can help, but most people can't run all
the time from a DVD without saving any files.

Then there's "social engineering", which AV will help
little with. Nor will Linux on a DVD help. I doubt that all
the people on Hillary's campaign were running without
AV. But they idiotically used gmail, which made it relatively
easy for attackers to craft fake gmail logins and trick
those people into sharing credentials. Once that was done
the attackers could read all email as it went through.
No local security would have helped there. (I'm amazed
at how many people care about privacy and security but
then do things like posting to Facebook, joining LinkedIn,
or using gmail. There's still a 90s mindset: We know those
things are not private but we just don't want to believe it.)

On Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:55:49 +0100, "s|b" wrote:

avast hasn't been triggered by a virus
for many years now AND I haven't been infected.


Besides using Avast, you've probably been careful. And you've also
been lucky.


I ask myself a lot: do Ireally need/want an antivirus program?


As far as I'm concerned, "need" is almost always too strong a word.
*Should* you use an antivirus program?

My answer is yes. I think everyone should use one. No antivirus
program is perfect, and even if it were perfect today, new viruses
will hit the street tomorrow, and no program's virus definitions can
keep up with everything new.

And no matter how careful you think you are, we all have times when
we're not at careful as usual: tired, too much to drink, fight with
your spouse, etc.

I've never been infected with a virus and no anti-virus program has
ever found one on any of my computers. But I continue to use one.

Ken Blake on 2016/12/10 wrote:

On Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:55:49 +0100, "s|b" wrote:

avast hasn't been triggered by a virus
for many years now AND I haven't been infected.

Besides using Avast, you've probably been careful. And you've also
been lucky.

I ask myself a lot: do Ireally need/want an antivirus program?

As far as I'm concerned, "need" is almost always too strong a word.
*Should* you use an antivirus program?

My answer is yes. I think everyone should use one. No antivirus
program is perfect, and even if it were perfect today, new viruses
will hit the street tomorrow, and no program's virus definitions can
keep up with everything new.

And no matter how careful you think you are, we all have times when
we're not at careful as usual: tired, too much to drink, fight with
your spouse, etc.

I've never been infected with a virus and no anti-virus program has
ever found one on any of my computers. But I continue to use one.

Those that don't use anti-virus/malware software and connect to the
network are irresponsible to other netizens. They want to use the
Internet but they don't care if they become a zombie that then goes out
to afflict other hosts. I've even seen some users state that they
merely do a fresh install of the OS when it gets too infected for them
to use. Yeah, **** up others with your infected host until it's too
much a nuisance to yourself.

If you don't want to protect your own host then stay physically
disconnected from the network so you don't screw over others. If you
don't want help to protect others then be standalone by staying off the
network! Abetters are scum along the malware authors. They are
hazardous to the health of the rest of us.

My attitude is similar to those who buy from e-mail spam: they abet the
spam problem by financing it. Only takes 1 abetter to finance many spam
campaigns.

You certainly don't need any anti-virus/malware software if you operate
standalone. If you connect and you don't protect yourself to help
protect others then you are a potential pariah to the rest of us. You
aren't on the Internet alone. When you share, be fair.

On Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:59:39 +0100, "s|b" wrote:

On Thu, 08 Dec 2016 07:18:58 +0200, Steve Hayes wrote:

I haven't had a virus *infection* for the last 10 years, but I get
about 10 e-mails a day with malware attachments. The most popular one
at the moment has been JSlocky downloader. Avast warns me about half
of them.

My provider scans my e-mails for spam and viruses for free. Sometimes
spam gets through, but they haven't missed a virus. That's one of the
reasons why I don't use avast's Mail Shield.

My provider supposedly does too, and I occasionally go to their site
to check the spam queue for alse positives -- about one a year. But
some obviously do get through and trigger Avast warnings. Others don't
seem to trigger the warning, but I delete them anyway.


--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

On Thu, 08 Dec 2016 07:18:58 +0200, Steve Hayes
wrote:


I haven't had a virus *infection* for the last 10 years, but I get
about 10 e-mails a day with malware attachments. The most popular one
at the moment has been JSlocky downloader. Avast warns me about half
of them.



I recommend that you read he
http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tuto...ning/index.htm

Z on Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:58:33 +0100 typed in
alt.windows7.general the following:
s|b wrote:
On Fri, 9 Dec 2016 12:46:34 -0800, T wrote:

The trick is to look over several (6+) months and see who is
consistent. Anyone can have a good month.

I understand. But to be honest: avast hasn't been triggered by a
virus for many years now AND I haven't been infected. I ask myself a
lot: do I really need/want an antivirus program? I do homebanking and
my bank advises me to use an AV program. I think that's about the
main reason. But even if I were to be "hacked", my bank will pay the
money bank since in Belgium the banks are responsible for the safety
of netbanking.


You could use a Linux DVD to do your banking. It's hard to hack a DVD.

Now if only the bank would use a DVD.

--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

On 12/7/2016 1:07 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good free antivirus program that works on
Windows 7, other than Avast.

I tried to update Avast today and it stopped working.

I tried to repair it, and it still wouldn't work, so I suppose I'll
need to look for something else.

Avira, AVG, even Microsoft Security Essentials.

Yousuf Khan

On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 22:03:18 -0500, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 12/7/2016 1:07 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:
Can anyone recommend a good free antivirus program that works on
Windows 7, other than Avast.

I tried to update Avast today and it stopped working.

I tried to repair it, and it still wouldn't work, so I suppose I'll
need to look for something else.

Avira, AVG, even Microsoft Security Essentials.

Thanks, finally opted for the last.


--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

Steve Hayes wrote:

I downloaded and installed Microsoft Security Essentials.

That will probably serve my purposes until Microsoft stops
supporting Windows 7, but they're still supporting Vista, so that
might be a while yet.

Microsoft Security Essentials plus Malware Bytes works for me, I really
doubt you'll need anything else.


--
XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project:
http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

Hello XS11E,

Steve Hayes wrote:

I downloaded and installed Microsoft Security Essentials.

That will probably serve my purposes until Microsoft stops supporting
Windows 7, but they're still supporting Vista, so that might be a
while yet.

Microsoft Security Essentials plus Malware Bytes works for me, I
really doubt you'll need anything else.


Ditto

Keith Keith wrote:
Hello XS11E,

Steve Hayes wrote:

I downloaded and installed Microsoft Security Essentials.

That will probably serve my purposes until Microsoft stops supporting
Windows 7, but they're still supporting Vista, so that might be a
while yet.

Microsoft Security Essentials plus Malware Bytes works for me, I
really doubt you'll need anything else.


Ditto




I suggest adding Immunet which will run along side other "anti" programs.

--
Zaidy036