Antivirus solution / suggestions

Norton was fine when i used it years ago. It always detected malware and although it was resource hungry people that complained were usually people with low end crappy machines. Personally ive always had a good machine even in the 90s so never felt any problems with resources. Same with Vista ran fine on a high end machine. Id rather use norton than anything from ESET tbh and i say that from experience.

 

LOL. Windows 7 doesn't have the real full Defender.

 

It does excellently with all of the testing organizations and is always one of the top recommendations.

 

I've had no issues with Defender on a series of very resource limited laptops running Win7, 8.1 and 10....

 

It's called security essentials on 7.

 

Yes and it has to be downloaded separately. It is not included in the OS and is not Windows Defender as we know it. What is called Defender in Win 7 isn't worth squat.

 

Best antivirus? Your brain.

 

Since Avast bought out AVG, AVG appears to be improving.... I still wouldn't touch it, personally. I bought a license for it in the past and ended up getting a refund in less than 24 hours because of it being pure garbage.

Sophos appears to be doing quite well also. May give Sophos Home a go at some point since it's free.

For those that actually care, Windows Defender is the only antivirus recommended by Google....lol

 

Wow there is so much misinformation in this thread its not even funny.

First of all, conventional antivirus software is pretty much useless.

Exploit mitigations are the most essential piece of security software that you should have. Malwarebytes Anti Exploit, which has been rolled into their main program now, is easy to set up and extremely effective. You can still use the free version from here. https://forums.malwarebytes.com/topic/184939-mbae-109-latest-standalone-beta/

Or you can use EMET, if for whatever reason you prefer it over MBAE. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2458544/the-enhanced-mitigation-experience-toolkit

In terms of realtime anti-malware and anti ransomware, its hard to beat Malwarebytes Anti Malware for consumer level endpoint protection. If you want to beat then, youd need to step up to a hardware root of trust system like Bromium(not for consumers). Just make sure you turn rootkit scanning ON in detection settings before you scan with Malwarebytes.

Windows Defender is honestly fine, since an antivirus wont be doing much if you're blocking the primary delivery method using exploit mitigations. Zero day exploits or normal exploit kits in compromised websites or their ads are the biggest threat to most eople just browsing the internet, since legit sites are constantly getting compromised and being used to distribute malware(specifically ransomware and RATs).

Conventional antiviruses dont effectively stop them, because signature based detection is easily defeated by sophisticated threat actors using obfuscation techniques.

Of course, you should always use security best practices like securing your email and all accounts with two factor auhentication, backing up your data, and keeping your software up to date. Some people say "use a password manager" but those have proven to be unsafe. Better off with a piece of paper and a fireproof safe if you forget passwords tbh.

If you are interested in even greater insight into whats running on your computer, you shoulsd familiarize yourself with Sysinternals tools like Process Explorer, which has an option to compare the MD5 hash of the running processes against Virus Total's(owned by Google) database. It can be helpful for determining if your antimalware missed something. Also enable "Verify Image Signatures" in options along with "Check Virus Total". Under File, be sure to "Show Details of All Processes".

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx

Autoruns lets you check processes set to load with Windows and disable them.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

TCPView shows you what your computer is connected to.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/tcpview.aspx

While on the topic of network security, make sure Windows Firewall is configured properly, and dont use third party firewalls in Windows. Theyre basically useless.

A couple other useful tools for cleaning out malware are:

https://www.f-secure.com/en_US/web/home_us/online-scanner

F-Secure is one of the few security companies that makes decent software. Their HIPS based antivirus is decent, but it can cause issues with some games, and i dont really recommend a HIPS usually. They also make a really good Mac antivirus.

Their Freedome VPN is great for Android, iOS and Windows devices, and comes with a lot of cool features like tracker mapping and malicious site blocking.

Malwarebytes bought two of the other best tools in the last couple years, and now you can get them directly from their site, which is nice.

Adwcleaner

https://www.malwarebytes.com/adwcleaner/

Junkware Removal Tool
https://www.malwarebytes.com/junkwareremovaltool/

For those looking for Windows Defender for Windows 7.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14210/security-essentials-download

Since you'll hopefully be using a separate device like a phone or tablet for your two factor authentication(Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Steam Guard etc) you should make sure that your Android or iOS devices are also secure.

F-Secure's Freedome VPN is basically an all in one solution that's very good for the price. It also goes on sale 50% off a few times a year like black friday.

Lookout Mobile Security has a completely free option that is probably the best Android antimalware solution. It runs fine with Freedome if you want to use both.

Obviously do not jailbreak, root or enable unknown sources on your Android or iOS device if you want it to remain secure.

Now for a little rant. In a thread asking about security, people really shouldn't give misinformation like "oh i have this(useless) antivirus and my computer is clean" or "oh i dont use any kind of security software and i dont have a problem!".

I can almost guarantee that if you used useful software that worked and knew how to actually find malware on your system, youd find quite a bit, considering how many legit sites get compromised and serve malware.

Heres a few "security" vendors to specifically avoid:

Symantec(Norton), McAfee, AVG, ioBit, PC Pitstop(PCMatic).

And to the people who say "oh it does well with comparisons like AV Comparitives", those tests are absolutely meaningless and complete trash antiviruses are recommended based on them, but theyre still trash.

Put them up against a crypted piece of malware or an exploit kit and they fail miserably. Thats when it actually matters too.

TLDR

Malwarebytes premium with rootkit scanning plus Windows defender for paid.

Malwarebytes Anti Exploit beta free plus Windows Defender and periodic scans with Malwarebytes free for a free setup.

Two factor, backup, update, avoid garbage software, useless antiviruses and bad security advice.

Someone should really update the security thread on this forum too. Its beyond uselessly out of date.

 

Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware is great....if you don't mind buggy as hell software. People are STILL bitching about ver 3....

EMET is on it's last leg, since most of it has been built directly into Windows 10...

EMET has also been broken numerous times...and MS is committed to ending support for it as soon as people quit bitching about old, outdated software being EOL'd....

AVG and Avast are essentially the same AntiVirus these days, being that Avast owns both....and they both use the same source code now. Only real difference is the UI.


Of course, you missed a big one. Avoid software from companies based in Russia or China, since their governments have a tendency of forcing companies to do their dirty work.

 

I did say, if for whatever reason(running old OS or something) that someone may use EMET instead of MBAE. I personally wouldnt use EMET though, but it is an option until they completely end support. And yes, Bromium was one of the groups that broke EMET. I avoid Windows 10 though, and there are still plenty of people disgusted by Microsoft's shady malware like installing and all the data collection that Windows 10 does by default.

Avast is mostly ok, and naming AVG is more on principle at this point, even though someone else bought them out. Its like Intel buying McAfee. Intel makes some of the most sophisticated tech in existence and yet they keep that name and the software still sucks lol.

I have heard that some people had issues with MBAM 3.0, but 3.1 seems to have resolved a lot of them. I think they went a little bit too fast integrating MBAE and MBARW into MBAM, and it should have been in beta longer.

You need to add the UK to your list of countries to avoid software from, because they passed the "snoopers charter", and can mandate backdoors into their software as well. Australia is probs next, but i dont think they make any security software anyway.

 

Then you probably have never used an AV product that's actually fast.


Windows Defender is easily the slowest out there. That difference is easily noticeable. Heck, on my HTPC installing latest NVIDIA drivers took ages because Windows Defender is so damn slow resource hog.

 

Unless your computer is a potato, Windows Defender isnt a resource hog. It works fine with Malwarebytes too. AV Comparatives and tests that dont comprehensively examine how the thing works arent very useful.

It says performance impact. Ok? If you go by the combination of AV Comparitives scores in all categories, whats the best antimalware?

Since Malwarebytes isnt even listed, my guess is that the answer will be pretty far from reality.

 

Different tests for Anti-virus and Anti-malware, even though they should be compared directly. There are several Anti-Malware programs missing.