I disabled my anti virus for an entire month, then I started a full analysis.
>No virus found
I swear an ad/spam blocker is all you need unless you're a retard who mostly lurks fishy sites.
>>53722118
Pretty much useless. Even if you catch something there are programs that pretty much take care of it immediately, antiviruses are useless even for the normal user.
It's good to be safe then sorry when downloading shady 15 year old russian hacking tools without another decent alternative.
>>53722335
Then again, you could run them in a virtual machine.
>>53722287
You're wrong. Without Norton my mother's computer would be Hell.
>>53722370
Without Malwarebytes my Mom's laptop would be your Mom's Vagina.
Just choose the right software.
How do you protect yourself from the virus that encrypts your computer?
>besides backups
>>53722370
>>53722118
the answer may be either yes or no, it all deepens on what you do on your pc
>>53722437
the same way you deal with any other virus.
backups
>>53722437
By using an adblocker that blocks access to the infected files to begin with.
99% of viruses come from the internet. Preemptive measures > any antivirus.
>>53722287
I quit using anti viruses years ago, specially when I figured out that they don't keep you from getting a virus when you do get one and they can't clean your pc if you do get one, so they turn out to be useless.
>antiviruses are useless even for the normal user.
for some people yes, for others no. and both those people need to be using something like a ipad
>>53722118
My work computer runs Windows. It's on a corporate network, vpn most of the time and has a good anti-virus. I'm not sure it's required but whatever, the IT guy installed me the normal software we get on those machines, and I'm not going to start playing with it.
My personal machine runs Linux, so I don't really need an anti-virus.
Common Sense 2000 should get you covered
I bought one for my parents computers. Bitdefender, I'm scared they'll get ransomed ware and Bitdefender covers that issue pretty well.
>>53722118
I've been there and done it.
You're mostly right and the truth is most common viruses and other malicious is blocked by the operating system's own security software on your machine.
That same security software can protect you from fishy websites to some extent too, but it is better to be as protected as you can with those.
An anti-virus or other similar security software suite simply protects you from the fewer malicious software that the operating system can't protect your system from, but this isn't guaranteed to work and isn't likely to stop exploits which haven't been discovered before.
The simple obvious answer to anti-virus software is that it is there to protect your machine's software, data, etc when least expected and this is very likely to be on only a few occasions in present time; but this could change.
NoScript + uBlock Origin + Malware Bytes + ESET NOD32
>>53724316
>Implying iPads can't get malware/spyware of the sort.
>>53722118
For the competent user, absolutely not. I honestly can't remember the last time I even had an antivirus installed on my computer. All I've used for 2+ years is passive ad-blocking protection and script/request blocking.
Literally the combination of these two things basically ensured I never got a virus. I can't remember the last time I got a virus either that wasn't explicitly placed by me.
As far as a typical normie end user is concerned however, they are absolutely necessary because a lot of them don't even know ad blocking software exists and think fucking "you won a car/ipad/free vacation" bullshit is actually legit.
Fucking retards I swear.
>>53722118
Windows Defender will suffice
