advertisement


Is the Windows anti-virus good enough?

tuga

tuga

Legal Alien
My youngest has just received a Windows desktop for his birthday.

Is the Windows anti-virus good enough?
Should I pay for McAfee or Norton or something else?
 
tuga said:
My youngest has just received a Windows desktop for his birthday.

Is the Windows anti-virus good enough?
Should I pay for McAfee or Norton or something else?
Click to expand...

Keeping the operating system completely up to date, and Windows Defender fully active, is enough.
 
It would be a good idea to set up a backup strategy to protect important files. Ideally 3 copies and if possible one off-site, perhaps that could be on cloud.

A reminder could be set up his phone to nag him to backup.
 
Agree that Windows AV is fine.

Would be interested in the consensus on Malwarebytes though. I used to have it on my old laptop but never got round to installing it on this one. Should I?

Edit: happy to take GT's word for it.
 
cctaylor said:
It would be a good idea to set up a backup strategy to protect important files. Ideally 3 copies and if possible one off-site, perhaps that could be on cloud.

A reminder could be set up his phone to nag him to backup.
Click to expand...


This. Windows defender is fine and doesnt slow your machine down. just make sure he saves everything in one drive so it's automatically backed up to the cloud, then once every couple of weeks Use freefilesync to back it up to a usb stick. You'd have to be really unlucky to lose anything then.
 
Yank said:
I'm not convinced Malwarebytes isn't malware itself.
Click to expand...
It very much isn't malware. I work for an IT reseller and it's one of the enterprise-grade EDR solutions we sell.

https://www.gartner.com/reviews/mar.../malwarebytes-endpoint-detection-and-response

The freebie for home PCs is great if you make sure you run it once a week or so and the reason a lot of AV/AM providers do this is because unprotected home computers are a risk to corp networks as it's often the easiest target for things like botnets etc. By reducing infections on home PCs you reduce the risk to corp machines as well.

That said, Windows Defender is now really well-rated and I'd have no issue running it as my sole means of protection on a home PC. It's miles better than it used to be.
 
Funk said:
It very much isn't malware. I work for an IT reseller and it's one of the enterprise-grade EDR solutions we sell.

https://www.gartner.com/reviews/mar.../malwarebytes-endpoint-detection-and-response

The freebie for home PCs is great if you make sure you run it once a week or so and the reason a lot of AV/AM providers do this is because unprotected home computers are a risk to corp networks as it's often the easiest target for things like botnets etc. By reducing infections on home PCs you reduce the risk to corp machines as well.

That said, Windows Defender is now really well-rated and I'd have no issue running it as my sole means of protection on a home PC. It's miles better than it used to be.
Click to expand...
We partner with and put MBytes on the PC’s we manage, mainly micro and small businesses, runs alongside Defender happily.

A couple of my tech guys buy licences for their family computers so obviously rate it.

Defender is fine no need to replace it with anything else like Norton or AVG.

All imho obvs.
 
cctaylor said:
It would be a good idea to set up a backup strategy to protect important files. Ideally 3 copies and if possible one off-site, perhaps that could be on cloud.

A reminder could be set up his phone to nag him to backup.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendation. My son only uses Google online apps, I don't think that he will be storing anything locally.
 
Defender has come a long way and I personally think it is spyware. A year or so ago I tried to document my findings about some rather 'sensitive' microsoft commands. No matter what application I used from a text editor to Word after saving the document it was immediately deleted with some message about it being unsafe. Therefore M$ are reading what I have written after the document has been saved!

One thing you can do to protect yourself in Windows is to place Internet faceing apps such as email and web browsers into a virtual machine. Keep that backed up and if it gets infected delete it and restore a backup - takes a few minutes. Also I run Thunderbird and my chosen browser(s) in a Linux VM so if any malware did attack it would be for a Linux O/S and not Windows. In addition use a 'standard' account for everyday work never an admin one.

I like to use things like Thunderbird and Libre Office as they are supported on all 3 popular O/S and xfering information across platforms becomes simple and easy.

Like others years ago I used malware bytes that was very useful and there were teams of people who gave their time for free to help sort peoples problems through malware. I haven't used it for years as prevention is better than a cure.

Cheers,

DV
 
My new motherboard from earlier this year came with Norton AV and their backup / tuneup utilities included. Is there any point in keeping it once the free trial expires? If it will work as well as Defender then the small expense is fine, but if it will slow down or unnecessarily bloat the pc then I will remove it.
 
Darth Vader said:
Defender has come a long way and I personally think it is spyware. A year or so ago I tried to document my findings about some rather 'sensitive' microsoft commands. No matter what application I used from a text editor to Word after saving the document it was immediately deleted with some message about it being unsafe. Therefore M$ are reading what I have written after the document has been saved!

One thing you can do to protect yourself in Windows is to place Internet faceing apps such as email and web browsers into a virtual machine. Keep that backed up and if it gets infected delete it and restore a backup - takes a few minutes. Also I run Thunderbird and my chosen browser(s) in a Linux VM so if any malware did attack it would be for a Linux O/S and not Windows. In addition use a 'standard' account for everyday work never an admin one.

I like to use things like Thunderbird and Libre Office as they are supported on all 3 popular O/S and xfering information across platforms becomes simple and easy.

Like others years ago I used malware bytes that was very useful and there were teams of people who gave their time for free to help sort peoples problems through malware. I haven't used it for years as prevention is better than a cure.

Cheers,

DV
Click to expand...



You really do like those virtual machines don't you lol.


I purchased malwarebytes because my youngest son likes to click anything. It removed 40 suspected malwares last month. He is so bad I have stuck him on a separate network that cannot see the main one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top