Re: Antivirus



Michael "TheZorch" Haney wrote:
Bart Silverstrim wrote:
I can set my AV to update every half hour. Doesn't mean the signatures
are all that up-to-date, though. But if it gives you the warm fuzzies...

I've been burned by a lot of other AV programs, either they stop giving
away free virus definition updates and make you pay for them, or they
don't update often enough and you get caught off guard by some new
infection, or etc. etc. I've recommended Avast to a lot of people who
use Windows and they've all been very happy with it. I configured it
for a person who is completely blind and has to rely on JAWS
(proprietary text to speech software) to use their computer. To have it
automatically take care of tests like doing scheduled scans, virus
definition updates and application updates really simplified things for
that person.

I'm not saying it's bad that it does this. I'm just saying, "Don't let
the frequent updates lull you into a false sense of security."

It's great you've not had trouble and had good experiences with Avast.
But if you think about it, if you rely on it to find malware, and
there's malware on the computer that it doesn't find, how would you know
there isn't something bad on it?

And while Avast may be good in the sea of options, it still may not have
a perfect record.

No attack meant...I'm trying to point something out to you and other
readers.

Ubuntu asks for your password for some takes and to unlock certain
configuration screen, but my Gods it doesn't bug you nearly half as much
as UAC on Vista. I only ever see it when I'm start up Synaptic or
mounting my second hard drive.

It (Ubuntu) is asking for the password when it would normally take Sudo
privileges (root privs) to alter something. I wouldn't be surprised if
it were using sudo behind the scenes half the time.

It makes sense once you're familiar with how Linux works (well, Ubuntu)
and how it relies on Sudo.

It's still there, though.

Any AV program has some impact on system resources. Its just knowing
which ones have the least impact.

Yes, I agreed with that. I still don't like it.

I'm not a gamer user, I'm not a performance nut, but I do find it
irritating in principal (principle? Too lazy to look it up at the
moment) to be coerced into running something that impacts my system's
memory and CPU usage just because the OS is crap.

I am a Gamer but I'm not really a Performance Nut though. I do like my
games to run well and most of my games are older ones. The latest won't
run on this desktop and the laptop I have which was a gift can BARELY
run Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. If I want to play something like Crysis
I'd have to sell my soul for a computer powerful enough to get 30 fps at
800x600 resolution.

Oh, you know what I mean by gamers. I'm referring to the gamers that lay
out the dough for the game systems that you fry bacon on unless they're
liquid-cooled.

That said I still run an AV on my one Windows system that is used solely
for supporting my iPod via iTunes.

Apple so needs to port iTunes to Linux. I have a 2GB Sandisk Sansa Clip
and Aramark is all I need. I use iTunes on the Windows side for playing
music when I need to be in Windows for some awful reason.

If I had something other than an iPod, I'd probably use Banshee. Not
caring how much flak I'll get here, I like how the iPod integrates with
the Mac, and since I don't have a personal Mac, I use an old Windows
computer to run iTunes.

The whole AV reactive model is a POS. :-)

True, but until some new technology is developed to combat royal jerks
who like to write malicious software (Script Kiddies, not Hackers, get
it right) we're stuck with this crapfest.

Technically, it's Windows and the architecture behind it. It's not
designed for failure, so failing in one area causes it all to topple
over like a deck of cards.

I would need to review it, but I think
http://duartes.org/gustavo/blog/post/Richard-Feynman-Challenger-Disaster-Software-Engineering
was one of the reference links I used to illustrate the point.

<support>

I feel your pain, I worked in IT Support for over 10+ years. I began as
a tech answering support calls for HP Pavilion PCs running Windows 3.1
and DOS!!!

Ouch. Pavilions.

Ironically, it's a refit pavilion saved from the scrapheap I'm using for
iTunes.

Yeah, there's an anti-malware tool from grisoft too.

I stopped using AVG a long time ago so I never saw that feature in it.
It was inevitable that they'd add it though since everyone else and
their brother's second cousin is doing it too.

It's a second free tool from their site.

I'm not speaking from recently googles myself but I'm sure there are
examples of "tests" from different sites that would rank Avast in
differently depending on the competition, time of year, test
environment, phase of the moon, etc. regarding effectiveness.

In other words "you're mileage my vary" is what you're trying to say
here. :)

Yeah, but that caveat goes for just about everything.

I still stand by my point that the entire AV/Anti-spyware/Anti-malware
industry is profiting from the broken architecture of Windows.
I totally 100% agree with you there. I've never seen an OS with so many
security vulnerability in my life and I've seen a lot of OSes (Unix, Sun
Solaris, Linux, BSD, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, BeOS, NextStep, OS/2 Warp, all
of the iterations of DOS, Netware, MVS and C/PM). A multi-billion
dollar industry sprang up literally overnight to fix a problem which
Microsoft should have fixed a long time ago.

It's an architecture problem. A product evolution problem. And a
marketing problem.

If backwards compatibility wasn't (ironically) a priority with MS, a lot
of the security concerns would have been partially stamped out.

The ONLY reason I keep XP and Vista around is because many of my
games don't work in Wine (Final Fantasy XI is one of them which I play
often).

Yes, but this (WINE) could also act as a vehicle to execute Windows
trojans/worms/etc. on Linux...


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