Ask HN: What antivirus do you run on Windows, if any?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12731094

by BoorishBears • 10 years ago

5 15 10 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

AceStar2• 10 years ago

Windows has had its own antivirus (Security Essentials / Windows Defender) for some time now. Do you have any reason not to trust it, or that it isn't adequate?

Most large antivirus vendors don't fill me with a lot of confidence, and my theory is that at least Microsoft's own solution is going to integrate well and stay out of my face.

BoorishBears• 10 years ago

I've generally relied on Defender and "common sense", I just have a PC or two that tend to be focused on gaming, and I'm a little more conscious of how much poorly vetted software I run on them (things like game modifications running native code). Especially after a scare a year or so back with a game modification that had been infected with a key logger. I wouldn't really think to inspect something like that closely (and it had a large userbase, so even if I had searched around I probably would have figured it was safe)

savethefuture• 10 years ago

Keep in mind that Windows Defender uploads your files to the MS cloud for scanning. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/window... And generally any "large antivirus vendor" is going to integrate just as well and can be non-intrusive as any other.

AceStar2• 10 years ago

I used McAfee's suite once because I had to (corporate environment). It popped up all the time wanting this or that. It relied on ActiveX for a lot of what it did. Updates to it failed if your system default browser was set to something other than Internet Explorer.

I'm guessing it's moved on since then, but it lost my trust. I've had to use Norton's suite before too and it had similar reliability issues.

Since using Security Essentials / Defender on Win7 and later it just works and never needs any hand-holding.

infinii• 10 years ago

Avira offers a free one that's served me well. In fact, I also started using it on my OSX.

mikebos• 10 years ago

I'm currently running Bitdefender, there's no real good reason for that except the license for it was a cheap offer. There are some antivirus test like av-test.org and av-comparatives.org and no doubt others. Personally I think an adblocker and, notdownloading anything illegal and a decent spam filter are more effective. The last time I had a virus was 10+ years back.

kek918• 10 years ago

For my personal computer I use Microsoft Security Essentials / Windows Defender. My biggest threat is when my kid is using my computer and playing on some flash game websites, so all my user accounts are currently non-administrators which atleast might mitigate some attempts.

However, at work it's a different picture. We have 300 "lusers" and everyone are eager to click on the newest malware on the block with no thought of consequences.

We've tried several AV products and right now we're using BitDefender which seems to get the work done for the most parts. First time we ran it, It found our (IT dep) 10 year old Red Alert 2 .exe crack so that was quite amusing. It also has few false positives and hardly ever makes itself noticeable in resource monitor.

veddox• 10 years ago

Kaspersky has served my family very well. It's not free, but it's effective (usually one of the top three in all the rankings I've seen) and it stays out of the way. Good UI, too.

t0mst0n• 10 years ago

I using kaspersky internet security and it ok.

JoClimb1ng• 10 years ago

For my home pc I use Norton Security since 2006. I'm still satisfied.

pythonbull• 10 years ago

I run Sophos for last 4 years.

puddintane• 10 years ago

I use ESET Smart Security.

[1] https://www.eset.com/int/home/smart-security/

hifunda• 10 years ago

I use Bitdefender Free edition and no issues so far!

romanovcode• 10 years ago

If you don't download any cracks or whatnot the built in is perfectly fine.

svarnypetr• 10 years ago

I am using Avast and prefered it over AVG which I tried earlier.

Ask HN: What antivirus do you run on Windows, if any?

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