Windows 7 Protection from Malware/Virus?

Hi,
Certainly what Neem said is true, about you get what you pay for. We disagree on which paid AV program you use, but certainly AVG free or paid does not and will not protect your computer adequately! Period. I see computers come in all the time to my ship that are infected with all categories of viruses; Trojan, Spyware, Worm-Viruses, Day-Zero Attack viruses, and Ransomware running AVG. It used to be good at one time about 10 yrs. ago, but their management changed and the product is just not what it used to be. On the Malwarebytes, make sure you have updated to v3.06 the latest version. Even the old Malwarebytes is good and better than most of the AV programs at detecting spyware viruses, as that's the only viruses it looks for.

You might take a look at this post I wrote yesterday here for more information: Is a anti-virus program needed?

Finally, on the Linux question: I have yet to see any Linux viruses in 15 years, and to me it seems more resistant to viruses than Macs are for example. And the Urban Myth you've no doubt heard that Macs never get viruses is of course BS (check snopes.com for independent debunking of that particular Myth!). Macs represent about 5% of the worldwide 800 million computers on the Internet today, Linux PCs less than 1%. As Neem stated, virus authors and cybercriminals usually spend most of their time writing viruses for markets where they will do the most damage, or be able to collect the most money (via Extortion such as Ransomware). Why write a virus that only affects a few million computers or a few thousand (Macs & Linux PCs) when you can write a virus that affects 800 million computers at one shot! Think about it.

Hope that proves helpful.
<<BIGBEARJEDI>>

I have a few friends that didn't have laptops so I set them up with some refurbs with Linux and I did have to reimage one due to ransomware and that was a Linux box.

I agree with you there. I am trying to get some of my customers to go with a refurb Linux box, but people are remiss to switch from Windows since it's been around for over 30 years now. Linux distros are getting better and better the last few years. For most home users, who use their computers for only a few basic functions such as reading news on the Web, E-mail, maybe some social media and occasionally write a document such as a letter in Word, Linux would serve their needs quite well. The lack of viruses being written to target Linux PCs is a nice side benefit of making the attempt to get off of windows.
[not to mention you can save hundreds of dollars a year buying paid-AV protection if you have 3 or more PCs in your home.].

BBJ

Thanks a lot. I have decided to install a paid AV. I am confused about which one to buy. How about Bitdefender Total Security and Kaspersky Internet Security? Both of them have fair share of good reviews.

I'd just get malwarebytes which works well with windows defender. Is low on system resources and has been trouble free for me for quite some years.

I prefer Webroot, low cost, can run with Defender, smallest footprint on a system. They do take a different approach though. A lot of their detection happens in the cloud which means sometimes your system may run the malware and webroot will record all of it's actions. Once the analysis is complete and it's determined to be malware webroot will roll all the changes back, ransomware and encrypted files included.

I am by far NOT an expert, we learn by mistakes as we go, that being said, I have worked in tech for over 20 years...In the first Computer shop I worked in, too get rid of viruses and such, this is what we did, We ran 3 different scanning programs, McAfee, Norton and back then FPROT, these were a mix of paid and free virus removal programs... Today I do the same...some times I have to use more than 3. Depending on your financial situation I would buy the one you like after doing your homework and get a bunch of free ones, it's time consuming and is sucks but maintenance is the key...Good luck happy scanning, maybe put ur sensitive data on a Linux partition for safekeeping but scan that as well...

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