what's your virus scanner??

Norton is the most RAM heavy application. It truely sucks. McAffee isn't much better. Avast and Zonealarm are both small tight apps. Zonealarm is the best thing I have used hands down. I run through the worst of the net on a daily basis and never get trojans, virsuses or jackbots. Plus you can get good copies of it on Piratebay

 

I doubt you actually are aware of everything.
I was using Norton, but switched to Avast because Norton wanted too much $$.
But anyway, Avast has prevented code injections to my systems numerous times from different websites, and the attempts are not coming from the site itself but from the banner ads and other BS being advertised on the site. Just loading a web page can result in a breech of system security nowadays.

I also know what it is on my system and can tell by checking what process's are running if I've been compromised. I can also often detect trouble based on how my system responds. But I still would not go online without some form of anti-virus/anti-malware software installed and running.

Having the OS on it's own partition or physical HD is always a good practice, but I have seen virus's that will copy themselves into each hard drive, and even across networks, especially if you have system restore enabled for that hard drive. Those restore point images are great places to hide malicious software.
I found one once on my brother's system and it copied itself into every restore point image on the system across three physical hard drives.

Death you should download Malwarebytes Anti Malware and run a full scan, you may be surprised at what it turns up. Hopefully nothing.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

 

I am building myself a computer over the Christmas holiday to replace this piece of crap that I use right now. What antivirus program should I utilize so that it does not bog down the computer with unnecessary tasks?

 

Noxious,
The link you have put does not open...
gives a 404 error message..


The requested URL /newforums/www.malwarebytes.org was not found on this server.

 

Oops, sorry. fixed in the post and here it is again.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

 

I use AVG 2011 Pro, having got a 2 year licence for £2 last year.

But on my little netbook I use Micro$ofts free anti-virus, does a good job, too.

 

I use AVG 2011 as well,and it's doing allright:2thumbsup:
@noxious,thanks for the link...downloaded it..
I think it's a good scanner for malware..

 

McAfee and AVG anti virus are good one.

 

Norton 360.

 

AVG is what I use, never had a problem with it.

 

I think AVG is pretty popular, probably because it subliminally brings "A VaGina" to mind.

I use Avast, since I'm a pirate.

 

I used to use Avast!... but I realized that with AVG I didn't have to regregister as a free user every year. So now, I use AVG.

 

Aaaargh, matey,,you've almost turned me,,

 

Bear in mind that some things will affect all the drives and files they can find, especially the extortion-style ones, where you have to pay them to de-encrypt all your shit.

Also, bear in mind that you really may not know, it's a lot less likely but you can have things actually break in depending on your firewall, and you can get stuff that really is hidden in something totally legit or whatevers.




As for me, I do the same, but I only use windows XP as far as windows goes, and I ONLY use it for gaming. 99.9% of my computer time nowdays is in linux.

 

Which distro do you favor?

 

I just built my computer last weekend because I had extra money and was sick of using my old 'crapper'. I installed the free McAfeee from the University and since the computer is so fast and has so much RAM it doesn't phase it. I am so happy with the computer I built. It was a lot of fun, too. And the best part was booting it up, just loading windows on a fresh hard drive and having NOTHING pre-installed on it! None of that free trial crap or any 'shady' pre-installs that you get with a pre-made computer.

I also learned a lot about fixing computers by making it. I was so nervous though, handling the 'precious' microprocessor haha. It is one of the new 2nd generation Intel i5 2500K processors. So it is one of the best out there (right below the i7).

 

I run ubuntu 10.

I've used all sorts of things, and a while ago was TRYING to set up gentoo and arch, but gave up on both of em, I'm just too stupid. (I mean to try again when I have more time) But ubuntu really just goes, it's ALL here and ready..... Every time I think I'll have to hunt down some software like back in the day, I realize my shit just does it. Like last night I wanted to burn a DVD, and thought I'd go have to find the equivalent of iDVD, but then realized my stock gnome disk copying/whatever tool seems to be able to write a movie DVD, starting with just MPEGs... I could be wrong, still haven't burned it. Hopefully it does it right and doesn't give me a data disk.

 

I used to have norton 360 on my PC but it ate up so much memory just sitting in the background. So I had it removed and now I use AVG. Have been doing so for around 3 years now.

 

I've considered using a free partition of 20Gigs for a linux distro. I've got to figure out the boot priorities first, since I think a linux boot is difficult to install OVER a windows boot. I think they suggest installing linux first, then windows, since linux is a lot more forgiving and multi-OS friendly than windows.

Someone told me to try "puppy" linux, because it's small. The big boys use "slackware", since it's so "raw", not "polished" like Ubuntu. I'd have to learn a lot of command-line stuff for that, so I'm not thinking of starting with slackware. But I do intend to learn, whatever the case.

I have a cool timeline chart that shows all the distros and their various derivations, so you can see which distro begot which other distro, etc.

But the attraction of something all set up is real. I just don't want to get into another "bloatware" situation, like with windows. I'm looking for "skinny" and "fast", and "handles all the basics". Only thing is, what is "basic" to one person may not be "basic" to another. I just don't want to end up with lots of software I don't really need, to slow down the system for the stuff I do need.

 

fuck viruses i has linux♥