To anti-virus or not to anti-virus, that is the question - Page 3

I guess all my computers are HTPCs. They all have tuners. 3 of them are connected to TVs and I like to keep them up to date in case one has to pull double duty in an emergency. Nothing like having to connect to the internet with a comp that's 2 yrs out of date.
No sense having 2 computers going in the same room however my gaming comp has no email on it.
I have yet to capture anything with an AV. It's always the Antispyware doing all the work.

I never said it wasn't connected to the internet. What I said is that I don't user it to surf the web. It is connected to the internet.

Norton is evil. Bad software. My sister in law came to me complaining that her shiny new $2,000 HP laptop felt slow. Sure enough, Norton was killing it. Reformatted (which btw, is probably the longest I have spent on a reinstall - almost 8 hours..), installed AVG on it, and the laptop is happy as a clam. And this aint the first time that Norton's been the culprit.

I think Anti Virus companies sometimes get carried away.

Best quote on here yet. And basically what I and Suntan have been saying all along.

Ask any Linux guru/nerd why they don't run as root (Linux version of administrator). Same concept should be passed along to windows users. There are way too many users running as admin which is half the reason why pc's get infected in the first place.

If more people would just run as a limited user, half the spyware/viruses/maleware wouldn't even be able to install itself on the pc.

So for 99.999999% of "common sense" users out there if they did the following:

- Used a Nat router, or a Nat router with a form of SPI (added that part in for you there Stealth)

- Turned on the windows firewall

- Ran in Limited user mode, IE NOT as administrator

- Don't click on links you don't know what they are or who they are from

- Don't open email attachments, blah blah blah

Basically being a level headed user and there honestly shouldn't be a reason or a need to run AV. but if your the type of person that has to "goes around randomly poking your “HTPC” into the dirty places on the internet, then you need a condom." (thanks again Suntan for that quote)

In the end its all up to how you use your system and what you do with it.

- Josh

Anti-virus software? No thanks. 4 computers (Gaming, Laptop, HTPC, Downloader/Server).....I can't imagine bogging it down with a stupid AV program. I reformat every month or so anyways....

I'm sure that had more to do with the massive amount of bloatware that comes preinstalled on most OEM systems and not just Norton.

No anti-virus software, ever ever never. Using a computer with AV software is like sex w/a condom, sure its safer but its just not as fun. It bogs down all your other software, it always prompts you for things, it 'helpfully' screws up browsing the internet when it comes to doing just about anything. I work for an internet company and loathe when users ask for support and they have AV software installed. When it comes down to it, I'd rather go w/out the software and just be careful and if necessary slash and burn the OS down the road and reinstall. AV software isn't worth it unless you're a button clicking, email opening monkey.

No problems with Norton AV or any of the free AV software. All my PCs including my HTPC have AVs protecting 24/7.

With my network connected to the internet all the time having AV installed is a no brainer.

It only takes one bad virus or trojan to f*** you up.

+1, but I use Macfee corporate edition for all my systems instead. Never had any slow downs with this version of Macfee. Esp with all the new more powerfull cpu's. In the old days the AV was an issue with online gaming, but I never notice the AV anymore with the newer systems when running any apps. The only annoying thing now is the antispyware progms. I have to deactivate Trend Micro to install software otherwise its a major pain with how long it takes to confirm any response. Search & Destroy is less annoying then Trend Micro and it confirms instantly. When my subscription runs out on Trend I will just use S&D instead since its free.

I am a novice here. Interesting discussion going on here. I just built an HTPC last week and was wondering about this issue. I would appreciate if could comment on my concerns. Thanks

The HTPC does access internet to download Guide and windows updates. No internet surfing.

How do you set up a limited user account in Vista which the system should automatically logon to instead of bringing up logon screen when it wakes from sleep or reboots? Will it affect recording TV, pausing live TV, etc.?

Can I control my HTPC from my pain PC? Right now I can transfer files to shared music and pictures folders on the HTPC. I would like to run programs, if possible.

What routers have best firewall features? Any recommendations?

I have Comodo Forewall and Avast AV on my other computers and do not want pop up warnings on my TV with no means to accept/deny those.

although a computer that does nothing except play movies and music is pretty safe from accidental virus installation, it's not safe from becoming a zombie/bot.

A zombied system will hardly ever show symptoms because the botnetmaster doesn't wan't to lose your system from his botnet.

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Personally i have the following setup on my HTPC (this pc is also used for web-surfing)

Nod32 antivirus (very lightweight, no interaction needed after correct set-up)

Comodo firewall (lightweight and most secure of the software firewalls, not only for security but also for privacy by blocking all app's that phone home) (after correct setup no user interaction required, especially on a htpc system)

hosts file based blocklist (this silently blocks all known virus infected url's)

Peerguardian (Blocks a host of worms, trojans and more)

Then on the hardware level.

NAT and hardware firewall


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Now i have to admit that only the hosts block list is enough for me to keep my pc virus/trojan/worm free, the rest is just an extra measure.

All in all the extra software adds about 50 mb of discspace and 50mb of ram usage, less than 1% cpu usage. total costs only 10 euro's because everything is free except nod32


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Limit users: This is one of the smartest thing you can do, but i would still use all of the above in combination with the limiter user.


Finally i would like to say the following:

If you store any data on the pc that might be unrecoverabe or hard to recover you'll have a big problem when a new worm of virus does hit and destroys all the data. The pc is weak enough as it is (1 biterror in RAM ever 4 weeks, 1 unrecoverable biterror on HDD every 12GB statistically).

Nothing on my HTPC, not really needed in my case but I understand this depends on each individual user. I do use it for my main gaming pc. I only recommend NOD32 or Kaspersky for AV.

go into the control panel, open up user accounts, create a new account, and when you create the new account, set it as a standard user and not as admin.

then to auto logon go to start, run, type in netplwiz once in there you can set your new user account to auto logon, type in the password and your set to go.


With remote desktop yes.

- Josh

Bah! The Blaster worm? C'mon, that thing is 5 years old and was patched eons ago. According to the MS link you provided on the buffer overflow worm, MS says using a firewall and/or applying the standard security patch mitigates the threat.

Virus protection is FUD pushed by anti-virus companies. Be smart and you'll be fine.