-
After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.
What AntiVirus do you use?
- Thread starter Mehta23
- Start date
nickdalzell
Extreme Android User
antivirus software is often unnecessary unless you do sketchy things like pirate software or view porn sites. my mom used to be very bad about clicking pop-up ads and got her computer infected quite often. a bit of common sense can prevent tons of problems--on any platform.
Anti-virus/Anti-Malware programs caused more headaches than they tried to solve. often blocking even legit downloads making it hard to find the option to 'do it anyway', or false-positives like blocking whatever port my MMORPGs used to connect online--making them useless and hard to fix without reinstalling the program or digging deep to find what option was blocked.
and, after all of that, those vultures had the gall to ask me to pay them $49 to keep using the software after a few months, and still spam my email begging me to return.
Anti-virus/Anti-Malware programs caused more headaches than they tried to solve. often blocking even legit downloads making it hard to find the option to 'do it anyway', or false-positives like blocking whatever port my MMORPGs used to connect online--making them useless and hard to fix without reinstalling the program or digging deep to find what option was blocked.
and, after all of that, those vultures had the gall to ask me to pay them $49 to keep using the software after a few months, and still spam my email begging me to return.
Thatdad
Android Expert
Sometimes.
I use torrent sites for the bands that put their stuff up as promotional or just put their stuff on for free, to get their name out there.
Even then those have viruses sometimes.
My rule of thumb is better safe than sorry. And when it comes to credit card info and other sensitive data.. I lock it down almost to the point of paranoia.
If your credit card get's stolen that's probably not because of the virus, it's probably that nice waiter from TGI friday's who told you "Be back in just a second"
Thatdad
Android Expert
I only use mine for online transactions. I never give my waiter my card lol, cash only. If somebody has to take my card out of my sight.. Uh uh. Not happening.
Can that still happen, giving the waiter your credit card? Especially with having to use your PIN now for transactions, i.e. chip and PIN. I'm certainly not going to give any waiter my credit card PIN, he can bring the credit card terminal to my table or I'll go to the bar and pay the bill.
Although where I am now most restaurants just don't take credit cards, they're cash only.
Thatdad
Android Expert
They have devices now where are all they do is swipe it like normal and boom. All your information is stored inside.
Thatdad
Android Expert
Idk if they do anymore but.. Olive Garden, Texas Roadhouse, and Applebee's didn't.
TGI Friday's doesn't take it to your table either. They take it away from you and swipe it and all that.
I remember reading about that. There was a load of doctored terminals that had unofficial cellular modems added to them at the factory in China.
Apparently they'd phone all the information back to China or Pakistan. And they where all over Europe as well. Although now I'd presume that the banks and CC companies would scrutinise their supply chains much better.
Thatdad
Android Expert
I remember reading about that. There was a load of doctored terminals that had unofficial cellular modems added to them at the factory in China.
You'd think.
They trust or vet their waiting staff to be totally honest? And that they're not going to go off and clone customer's credit cards, or do double transactions? Although the CC terminals themselves could have been tampered with. TBH I'm much more likely to find a dishonest waiter than a dishonest CC terminal.
I think in the UK and Ireland at least, is that the waiter or cashier doesn't even touch the credit card. The customer swipes or dips it in the terminal. In the UK and probably in other European contries as well, it's now the merchant and not the bank who is liable for fraudulent card transactions. So it's their best interested for them to have a system that doesn't really allow the staff to be dishonest, as much as possible, and definitely no handing of credit cards to waiters.
I understand that US issued credit cards don't have chips, and just have the magnetic strip. I've read that this can be a problem when using automated kiosks in the UK, like train ticket machines. Which just read the chip and not the strip, i.e. dipping a non-chipped card into a machine that expects a chip, and it's just not going to work.
jefboyardee
Extreme Android User
Methinks you
Thatdad
Android Expert
Thatdad
Android Expert
Norton and McAfee is the worst.
I say for just antivirus (cost) Avast is good.
For Free I say 2, MalwareBytes and Spybot.
I have a very rarely used Vista partition on my dual boot laptop. I've got AVG free on that.
The only other place I'm running av is on incoming email. We have various POP3 accounts which are transferred to a local IMAP server (cyrus) via fetchmail and postfix. amavas-new is setup as a filter in postfix. This is using SpamAssasin and ClamAV.
The only other place I'm running av is on incoming email. We have various POP3 accounts which are transferred to a local IMAP server (cyrus) via fetchmail and postfix. amavas-new is setup as a filter in postfix. This is using SpamAssasin and ClamAV.
9to5cynic
Android Expert
This. If you're gonna install something, this is what I'd do.
As mentioned above, I use browser extensions (noscript), but I also vet sites and software in VMs if I don't completely trust it.
aligeek
Lurker
Bitdefender - check the latest AV-Test results. They have tested Android anti-viruses as well.
sfbloodbrother
Extreme Android User
Hardly? I liked it while I had it, but when it failed to detect a virus on my computer, I quickly uninstalled it, and got MES, and have used that ever since.
BRAINZ2013
Extreme Android User
What the heck is MES .
A typo probably.