It’s essentially an obligation or responsibility at this point. I don’t actually use arch though. I use a ublue based something image immutable whatever doodad Thinkpad with mods blah cocaine coreboot.
Anyways sail the seas on the penguin, don’t worry about viruses. Within reason though as some configurations can allow windows software to fuck you up.
I sandbox stuff, using firejail or VM’s. coming from a cybersecurity perspective, AV’s are ok but they also aren’t stoping 0-days or malware that has been coded well by a good hacker.
The best antivirus is common sense. Use trusted sources, read comments, take regular backups, and use a dedicated server instead of your everyday driver. You can rely on Windows Defender or run another OS like Linux or even MacOS.
If you must download a suspicious file, check out sandbox options like Windows Sandbox.
I remember seeing a comparison between defenders and windows defender was on top. I see no reason to pay because of this. Either way I clean boot my pc every 4 months to keep it running very smooth.
If I download a file from a questionable source: scan it (with clamscan) If I run an executable I don’t trust: use a locked-down (with firejail)
No matter the antivirus, if you keep downloading and running questionable files, you run the risk of viruses. I would say that browsing patterns are more important than any antivirus.
Pretty sure Windows Defender is fine now and not markedly worse than something like Bitdefender. I gave up on Bitdefender when they ended the free version with no advance warning shrug-outta-hecks
I still end up using programs/services such as malwarebytes and virustotal on my desktop since defender isn’t perfect. I have had a few instances where a game that I download outside of places like Steam had files that are actually clean and safe given false positives. Same with any key gens I’ve used.
With malwarebytes and virustotal, I’ve had less false positives in legally obtained games I know are clean. Moreso with malwarebytes since there’s seemingly almost always one engine on VT saying the file is bad regardless of what it is.
I always find that having a 3rd party check a file is better than just having defender do all the work. What one engine might claim is bad might be safe to another.
Windows Defender is fine. The only anti-virus good enough at what it does to be worth buying instead of just using WD is Emisisoft, and that has its own set of issues.
If “Protection” is not the highest score, its shit. The other two (perf/use) are not so important generally, but I would say a score of 6,6,6 is far superior to anything 5.5,X,Y. Probably also means the company isn’t a rolling rock gathering moss. (“We make AV, and we keep it up to date” as opposed to “we are a megacorp, and profits overrule everything else”).
I don’t trust Windows Defender at all. I use BitchDefender all of the time. I tried Windows Defender for a year and it didn’t fill me with confidence.
I also upload to virus total anything from an unknown source. I tried to use Intezer as well but I had many problems with my account that I have up on them. For some reason their server didn’t like my account. A brand new account got closed the following day for being inactive for too long. A week later I can reset the password but I can’t log in.
I switched back to Windows recently. Windows defender is really good, but I also use ClamAV when I need a deep scan offline that reports with a log. I only need it when I connect other people’s USB drives to my computer, though. Windows Defender catches things really well and doesn’t interfere with software installation, just like ClamAV. I’d say if you are looking for something free and advanced, ClamAV is what you need if you need to scan something. I hate Windows Defender’s offline deep scan because it does not produce a log you can access. ClamAV does this.
Add comment