need for antivirus?

I don't see the point of using an antivirus in a HTPC either. If you're behind a hardware firewall and don't plan on surfing the net much with it, you'll be fine.

Use your main machine to screen whatever files you transfer to it.

Personally I do install a software firewall and antivirus on HTPCs. The days when your HTPC was mostly "offline" are long past, with Hulu, Apple trailers, BBC iPlayer etc. etc. And whilst all this should be safe .... you never know. And web browsing on the TV is more common/usable now too with 1080p displays.

Also, the days when antivirus would mess up your video playback are long gone, with a decent product and a PC from the last 3-5 years (depending on how cutting edge it was at the time). So there is no real downside other than cost.

But, of course, antivirus is not needed, anywhere, if you practice "safe browsing"!

And cost is not really an issue. There free ones. I use Avast.

I don't install an active AntiVirus, I do however, monthly run a free online scan via TrendMicro just to make sure

This is asked once every few months and the thread always turns out the same. There are those that feel that antivirus software is unnecessary on htpcs because they are either not used for browsing or the users practice 'safe browsing techniques'. Likewise, there are just as many that feel that all computers should have antivirus software installed because you can become infected by means other than just browsing (or you could become infected by another pc on your network). I'm part of the no antivirus crowd. I just don't care nearly enough to bother with it. I'd probably feel differently if I had kids that used it for browsing.

Firewall yes, Antivirus no (except you are running Windows XP). If you surf on your HTPC often I would suggest Sandboxie or Altiris SVS instead to encapsulate the browser. Antivirus needs extra resources and often displays popups which are especially annoying in the living room.

No AV or software firewall on the HTPC for years (running XP SP3) with no problems.

Only internet access is for SageTV channel updates, TitanTV, Netflix, Hulu and PBS.org streaming. All programs/apps are downloaded from a different computer and then moved over.

Personally, I am of the opinion that if you don't go poking your PC around in the dirtier parts of the internet, you don't need to worry about wrapping it up with AV.

-Suntan

Making a living in the computer industry, I have a hardware and software firewall and anti-virus. I also have scans schedules with other products such as spy-bot, ad-aware and cool web shredder.

If you access the internet with it then you need AV. There is no such thing as safe practice. Plenty of popular sites are infected with malware and viruses. In fact these are the ones targetted most. Ads often carry viruses as well and people who have the website dont always know what is in the ad. My work pc is as "safe practice" as you can get. I have never gone to anything other than the most popular major "safe" sites and i have had numerous viruses on it (all that were caught of course) People who dont use AV dont know they have viruses thats why they think its safe. Its an antiquated way of looking at security. It used to be.. GEE I dont open attachments with .exe files so I must be safe. WRONG. It has nothing to do with clicking on a file or opening attachments. Rarely are they sent this way anymore or at least not the ones you need to worry about.

Bottom line it cant interfere or slow down your pc so why wouldnt you just play it safe?

I like avira. It does have a popup if you dont pay for it but otherwise its free and its rated very highly. comodo has a nice firewall and now includes an AV solution. I dont know how good the AV is but the firewall is rated highly. dont knowa bout popups.

Windows 7 built-in firewall but no anti-virus on the ION build. I doubt the puny Atom will play nice with it while playing full Blu-Ray rips streamed from the unRAID file server. It doesn't get used for browsing anyway, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my brother doesn't come home with a virus (he has a netbook he connects to the wifi at school). His netbook, despite also having an Atom processor, has Avira installed. I don't trust their network.

Just have him do a full scan first before you transfer any files. Thats what you would have to do anyways. Like a quarantine. Once its safe then it can come out and join your network. But the network itself is dirty if it accesses the internet.

I've got relaxed file sharing settings on the LAN so even if he doesn't transfer any files, the network is at risk by virtue of him connecting. I've set his netbook so it doesn't auto-connect to the wifi at home and he does need to do a quick virus scan prior to connecting. He doesn't transfer any files to the local computers anyway.


But some are dirtier than others.