Delete Spyware, or Delete Anti-Spyware?
Brandon Edwards holds a similar philosophy to mine as far as spyware and anti-spyware programs are concerned:
I’ve been watching your videos since the day you started on YouTube. I just watched your video relating to spyware and the program you recommended for protection from it. I just had a thought I would like to share with you.
I used to run antispyware programs and virus protection programs religiously and had them run as a background process as well (did this for probably the better part of 5 years, and they work). The biggest thing I’ve noticed over the last 2-3 years since I’ve stopped using those programs entirely is that I no longer really have any issues with the stuff I was trying so hard to protect against in the first place. I currently do not run any form of antivirus program or antispyware program regularly and run a dual core PC with Windows XP Pro SP2 and dual boot with Vista Ultimate. The only tools I really use to keep my PC in top form are System Mechanic Professional (minus its virus and spyware protection) and Diskeeper (defrag tool). I also still keep Spybot around in case I have some reason to run a manual scan, which is very rare.
To sum up, I would just really like to stress that I’ve you are fairly tech savvy and use a good browser(and some common sense) with a pop up blocker built in(Opera, Firefox, etc.) it’s very possible that all those protection programs you run are doing nothing but slow down your system. However, I’m not suggesting that you don’t keep something around to scan and fix if you have a problem (spybot, superantispyware, etc.) I’m really not trying to denounce the usefulness of some of the protection programs on the market, but for myself and many others they may serve next to no purpose, as I’ve found is the case for me.
See, if people would stop downloading programs from P2P networks and avoid pr0n online… they’d be 99% safer. If you really wanna buy an anti-spyware product, we have a standing 30% discount for SUPERAntiSpyware.
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16 Comments
Czar
December 5th, 2007
at 5:34am
I totally agree. I got a new notebook a while back and have been using it for about 6 months. Recently, I decided to download AVG’s free antivirus and antispyware software. I scanned my computer and to my expectations there was no virus and only 2 threats that antispyware picked up, which were javascript files.
So all in all, if you are a smart user and dont surf the internet blindly there really is no need for antivirus or any other protection software to be running in the background.
However, you should do a scan every month or so just to check.
art
December 5th, 2007
at 8:26am
I used to hold a philosophy similar to Brandon. I hadn’t used an anti-virus or anti-adware program for years. I just used good email browsing habits combined with Firefox. I never had a problem and never worried about it.
I remember a couple of months ago i was having a conversation with a couple of managers, one was the IT manager, here in the office and I mentioned I didn’t use any of those programs at home. They were both shocked beyond belief. They insisted my computer must be riddled with all sorts of baddies, and had a hard time believing it wasn’t. Finally I stopped trying to convince them and steered the conversation back to work-related matters.
After saying all of that, I now use Avast for my anti-virus scanner. Last year I traveled to China and got married to a wonderful woman. The thing is, she is in the habit of downloading, shall we say “questionable”, software from various Chinese web sites. It wasn’t long before my computer was infected with the first virus it had had in years.
She felt very bad that she had infected my computer, and she doesn’t visit those web sites any more. She also now uses Firefox and that helps a lot too.
joseph
December 5th, 2007
at 9:18am
So what about NOD32?
It runs quietly in the background. i noticed less slowdown and other related problems from antivirus programs as well have been removed, so far i give it a thumbs up… until something better comes along.
El Wray
December 5th, 2007
at 10:17am
My system tools for maintaining my PC and generally avoiding problems in the first place
-Opera and a hardware router combined with safe browsing habits
-Adaware and Spybot for spyware/trojan/adware scans
-AVG anti-virus
-XP SP2 firewall
-Ccleaner for disk cleanup
-Diskeeper pro for defragmenting my drives. Excellent defragger.
-regular updates for all important software, especially MS critical updates.
-regular backups to dvd of all important files.
Works brilliantly.
Doug Woodall
December 5th, 2007
at 10:56am
Ah, but that is what they continue to do, dnload unsafe programs and attachments.
I so agree, but… The computer Security market is just like any other business. It strives to keep itself self sufficient. To create its own ecosystem so to speak.
And I always tell users,
Unless you’re really good with computer security, you need AntiVirus, AntiSpyware, and a reliable Firewall. The casual user will not be able to stop their system from becoming vulnerable.
Dmitrik
December 5th, 2007
at 11:42am
My philosophy is different.
Delete Windows and you need no more of this ****.
I actually prefer Linux to Mac OS because I don’t want any company to decide for me what I can or can’t do. But some people prefer Macs due to their simplicity and I can’t blame them for that…
Unfortunately, if Apple would become next Microsoft, same thing would happen to Mac.
With Linux, however, it’s completely different story, since everyone could issue a patch and if more and more people will use Linux, more supporters and developers could issue the patches, including many companies that will want to advertise their competence to customers by doing something productive and having everyone be grateful to them.
Now you know what people would use if we lived in a perfect world. Make it happen!
Tyler
December 5th, 2007
at 1:17pm
The thing is there is so many spyware and viruses in the Web that it is almost impossible to remain in safety without any security tools. The variant, described by the author seems to be possible in case he visits a perticular number of well-known for him sites. But if you need to surf in different…cuts….of the web, you chances to become infected with a spyware increase. What I recommend is to use the following list of the software:
Firewall: Comodo(www.personalfirewall.comodo.com)
Anti-Spyware: Anti-Keylogger(www.anti-keyloggers.com) as permanent protection and Ad-Aware(www.lavasoftusa.com/) for scanning
Anti-Virus: NOD32(www.eset.com)
Thos should be enough to protect the PC while surfing the web.
laaabaseball
December 5th, 2007
at 7:13pm
At this point, I have no antivirus or extra anti-spy on my vista machine, as it just slows down my machine anyway. I do however, use them on my XP machine. For these, i recommend:
Superantispyware: there’s a good free version and Chris has a discount for it.
AVG: there’s a free version at free.grisoft.com
Spybot S&D: of course this one is great.
A good for-pay antivirus is Nod32.
CCleaner: i recommend this because it can clear your temporary files (where spyware hangs out a lot)
However, through all this, the most important thing is behavior. Don’t open email attachments you don’t know, don’t click strange email links, don’t go to bad sites and install video players, don’t install strange toolbars, don’t use untrusted P2P sites…the list goes on.
After all this, you should be pretty good.
Thanks, laaabaseball
Sean (tomo30)
December 6th, 2007
at 3:56pm
with all the viruses on the web and tutorials on video web sites it is eye on imposible to remain safe however to be reletivlysafr, BE SMART, DO NOT download from p**n or warez sites, and dont open email attachments unless you know who thay are from and scanning them.
viruses seep in the system eventually, a good way to find and delete these is avg free.grisoft.com/ a free anti virue anti spyware anti rootkit site, so if you are unprotected go get protection.
and for the love of god unless you hav a 300-500 GB hardrive(HDD) do not install notan anti-virus it slows you down.
in a bit
Computer Repair Vancouver » Welcome to Computer Repair Vancouver
December 6th, 2007
at 7:15pm
Delete <b>Spyware</b>, or Delete Anti-<b>Spyware</b>?
Adware Free
December 7th, 2007
at 3:22am
Delete Spyware, or Delete Anti-Spyware?
Jon Chorney
December 12th, 2007
at 8:58am
I beg to differ with those who would do away with anti-malware programs.
First, a review of firewall logs show continuous attempts to get in - no firewall and you will probably have your computer compromised quite quickly. There have been enough documented demonstrations of this I have read from respected sources to be confident in this assertion.
Second, there have been any number of well publicized, recent incidents where advertising company servers were hacked, resulting in thousands of visitors to well-known public sites ending up with trojans installed on their computers.
Next, even if we do not routinely engage in risky behavior, at one point or another, there is at least a chance that we’ll get deceived and get caught - which is why I routinely run my OS partition in virtual mode on my home computer.
Lastly, there has been a significant change in the nature of the attacks - data destruction is no longer the only object of the game. Now, it’s increasingly about the accrual of information and bot computers - which is done as non-obtrusively as is possible.
In the face of all this, I believe that a decision to do without anti-malware protection is not one I can agree with.
Ray
December 12th, 2007
at 12:21pm
I use Panda 2007 Platinum for virus,spyware,etc and log into to secunia.com
to check for important updates.
News from everywhere » News Feed Alerts
February 1st, 2008
at 5:42am
http://media.pirillo.com/“>Video Help</a> | <a href=”http://feeds.pirillo.com/ChrisPirilloShow”>Add to iTunes</a> Related Content: Microsoft AntiSpyware Discount Software: AntiSpyware and AntiVirus Software CouponsDelete Spyware, or Delete Anti-Spyware?“F” That “S” The 100% Uptime Guarantee
Spyware Is Important
February 8th, 2008
at 6:21am
Original post:Delete Spyware, or Delete Anti-Spyware?Tag: Delete spyware
Robin
March 29th, 2009
at 9:02am
Antispyware solution from Search-and-destroy.
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