Weekend Open Forum: Do you keep antivirus protection running 24/7?

Having antivirus protection has become a fact of life for most computer users, as it's certainly not uncommon to hear of massive botnets recruiting infected PCs for spamming operations or…

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I keep antivirus running 24/7 (MSE 2 atm) and scan for malware using Malwarebytes about once a month. I have not had a virus, trojan, or worm in about a decade's time. I could definitely take your route, but it's a peace-of-mind tactic that I use. Plus you never know when someone who isn't an experience computer user needs to use your computer and you allow them to... it's an extra safeguard when I cannot personally be there monitoring what is happening.

i usually leave microsoft security essentials on 24/7 for windows 7. i never get viruses often, but hey, it can happen. i tried norton's security suite by comcast and it made my special applications useless. my school's Sophos AV picked up a lot of viruses lately, and i hear that people have gotten the viruses copied onto their usb flash drives unwillingly, infecting them. other than that, sometimes i use ubuntu linux if i dont feel like dealing with windows

No antivirus from me. I even deleted it off parents' PC, and they are noobs. No problems on my PC.

I have downloaded Malwarebytes Antimalware, and ran it once I think (when something didn't seem right), but false alarm. It's on parents' PC for when they do occasionally get malware.

I just hate the in-your-face notifications and warnings that anti virus brings. And then to a lower extent, the resource hogging.

Got MSE running all the time. My rig is fast enough to not worry about the performance impact... for now at least.

MSE 24/7. Malwarebytes for occasional scans.

same, 1 and a half years now when i decided not to use a resource hog antivirus. no problems whatsoever. that kind of software is for a computer who has many users that cant be monitored.

-malwarebytes antimalware
-comodo fw not windows fw

MSE running 24/7. Used to have AVG, but it really slowed down my netbook. I was running Windows 7 Ultimate on my netbook, and AVG running as well...majorly slowed it down. Dumped AVG, switched to MSE and running with not any signs of wear. I run Malwarebytes and Superantispyware once a month (overkill? probably...but that's just how I am, lol)

Same here. Plenty of hardware resources to spare. Let it keep itself up to date and scan when I'm not home.

I'm getting pretty tired of AVG needing a reboot after some updates, though.

I keep Avast running 24/7. With today's hardware and the quality of which companies are offering Free version of their paid security suites, I really see no reason why not. The performance impact of a single free antivirus program is almost negligible. I've never had a serious infection and only a few warnings in the past 10 years or so.

That being said, I also run things such as Firefox with Adblock+ and NoScript, which does most of the work keeping things out if I happen to hit an infected site. A modded MVPS HOSTS file and SpyBot immunization (which also adds some HOSTS blocking stuff) also help.

I honestly feel with my level of computer knowledge I could go without it, but have found no reason not to.

I run mine all the time. 10 Years ago on my first computer I had nothing, I did not know I needed anything. A virus or norton, what was left of the 6 month free trial that came with my pc, caused my computer to not be able to delete any old data. My computers storage filled up and eventually would not turn on. I learned my lesson. My brother didn't use anything for 4+ years and never had any serious problems go figure.

Windows 7 seems much more secure, so I dont run it continuously. However, I do a manual scan fairly regularly - with 2 or 3 different AV/spyware products. I dont think I've ever had an actual virus on this build of my PC (~18 months)

MSE 24/7. Reviews are always positive, and doesn't affect boot times. I also set it to only scan incoming files.

I used to use Avira + Spywareblaster + malwarebytes.

Avast Internet Security on 24/7, frequent scans of malwarebytes and spybot s&d

I have one machine that's dedicated to go anywhere, click on anything, (within reason), internet usage. So yeah, AVG runs constantly, along with the SpyBot tea timer, and NoScript in Firefox. Thus far it's been bulllet proof.

Can you even turn AVG off? Seems like it would be more aggravation and risk than it would be worth.

I rely on this machine to save clean files, that I transfer to other computers, some of which have no security installed, but aren't connected to the web.

You know, I've been preaching for years the Spybot "immunization" is actually a hosts file. Since if you go to the hosts file, you'll see all the IPs that Spybot puts there. Does anybody listen? Not really.

Nod32 24/7 and didnt even feel a thing, besides the interactive firewall helps a lot. But baaack in the time when i was a noob, i used to disable Norton AV to let my PC breathe a little then i went to PC-cillin wich was the 1st time i could actually update it because it was included in the ISP modem CD.

im also using MSE an keep it running all the time, i forget i even have an antivirus because it has no performance impact...and i havent had any infection for a really really long time

Yes.

I've got Norton Internet Security running in the BG of my machine with hardly any performance impact, with both its Firewall and Antivirus scoring pretty high in VB100 and Av-Comparative reports.

Its like a condom. I'd rather be safe than sorry and it doesn't cost me much either, sometimes its free, so why not use it?