What the title says, and that’s pretty much it. Do you or don’t you?
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I pirate on Linux and don’t use that device for anything else. And I don’t pirate software or games where you are installing stuff.
If I download a file from a questionable source: scan it (with clamscan) If I run an executable I don’t trust: use a locked-down (with firejail)
No matter the antivirus, if you keep downloading and running questionable files, you run the risk of viruses. I would say that browsing patterns are more important than any antivirus.
I still end up using programs/services such as malwarebytes and virustotal on my desktop since defender isn’t perfect. I have had a few instances where a game that I download outside of places like Steam had files that are actually clean and safe given false positives. Same with any key gens I’ve used.
With malwarebytes and virustotal, I’ve had less false positives in legally obtained games I know are clean. Moreso with malwarebytes since there’s seemingly almost always one engine on VT saying the file is bad regardless of what it is.
I always find that having a 3rd party check a file is better than just having defender do all the work. What one engine might claim is bad might be safe to another.
Defender all the way. Not a single virus since Windows 7. The thing some people don’t realize is that in order for third party AV to work it has to modify the lowest layers of the OS which actually exposes it more to attacks. You have to trust the AV to do its job perfectly or you’re screwed.
My source? Just crap I heard online before. Probably bunk. But I stand by my personal anecdote.
Third party AV just becomes malware itself by hooking into nearly every function at the kernel level. Of course this adds overhead and why historically Windows updates and third party AV have clashed leading to disaster. Blue screens, failed updates or failure to boot.
Defender + basic common sense = no viruses since Win7 for me too
I sandbox stuff, using firejail or VM’s. coming from a cybersecurity perspective, AV’s are ok but they also aren’t stoping 0-days or malware that has been coded well by a good hacker.
I don’t even have antivirus on my computer. I almost exclusively use private trackers and download music/shows/movies.
I use Windows defender, MBAM, and Rkill.
Haven’t had any issues yet, but I also choose my moorings well.
I upload any suspicious files to virustotal.com.
Format c:/
I sail naked AF.
Balls to the wind my friend o7
lol, not since 2004, and I’ve never looked back!
Windows Defender is fine. The only anti-virus good enough at what it does to be worth buying instead of just using WD is Emisisoft, and that has its own set of issues.
I switched back to Windows recently. Windows defender is really good, but I also use ClamAV when I need a deep scan offline that reports with a log. I only need it when I connect other people’s USB drives to my computer, though. Windows Defender catches things really well and doesn’t interfere with software installation, just like ClamAV. I’d say if you are looking for something free and advanced, ClamAV is what you need if you need to scan something. I hate Windows Defender’s offline deep scan because it does not produce a log you can access. ClamAV does this.
Q: How do you know that you don’t have a virus without AV?
A: How do you know that you don’t have a virus WITH AV?
Sometimes AVs are literally viruses.
Defender is sufficient when using common sense and being rightfully suspicious.
My toolbox also contains virustotal for suspicious executables/files.
If you actually want good protection, you’d need tiowatch at a solution that has behavior real time analysis. But that would also interfere with a lot of programs if they employ weird/shady programming (like trainers, mod menus etc.)
I don’t trust Windows Defender at all. I use BitchDefender all of the time. I tried Windows Defender for a year and it didn’t fill me with confidence.
I also upload to virus total anything from an unknown source. I tried to use Intezer as well but I had many problems with my account that I have up on them. For some reason their server didn’t like my account. A brand new account got closed the following day for being inactive for too long. A week later I can reset the password but I can’t log in.