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

Anti-virus on 24/7, AVG, Win7 64-bit and a hardware firewall. Scheduled scans performed at night. No problems for a while now.

I agree compleatly. +1

Fry's is in our area and they offer all sorts of free antivirus software during their sales. On my multiple partitions and computers I have Kaspersky, McAffe, Panda, and Webroot, just to experiment; all for free. On my vista laptop with 1G of memory I can generally have only 1 window open at a time-how do some say they open 40 tabs at once? My old 1 GHz machine is really slow with this resource intensive software; I really should disable the antivirus. All are slow at the start, and you aren't getting any more GHz any time in the future.

have vista 64 bit cause im broke and it came with the PC. i run my antivirus 24/7 scan and update daily ive never had a virus

almost 24/7, for some operations a turn off the antivirus protection...

I have mi Windws XP, PC with Internet Conexion with:

(mainly and active)
1. Comodo Internet Security (Firewall, Antivirus and Defense+ but not Sandbox)
2. Autorun Eater
3. WinPatrol
4. SpywareBlaster, and
5. McAffe SiteAdvisor.

(secondary for sometimes extra-scanning)
6. HickJackThis
7. RootkitBuster
8. SpyDLLRemover
9. Malwarebytes' Anti-malware,
10. ClamWin Antivirus.

and all these are "free" and give me "total security protecction"...

... Mmmm, I not a "Microsoft Automatic Updates" fan, why I don't use this service !!!

No, I don't download viruses.

Norton 360 Fully paid subscription, customized Norton Firewall to tighten up some of the looser ports, backed up with a D-Ling DGL4100 for those annoying little wired issues.

Running 24x7x365 and review the logs and adjust the setting every 30 days.

Keepin it tight...

Previously uesed Norton products, but recently switched to Vipre Anti-Virus with firewall and love it. Very light on using system resourses and is very efficient at protecting my computer. I also have Malewarebytes that I use for an occasional scan. Never had a infection with these products.

24/7 here. You just never know when you'll get some trojan poping out of some java apps or those little ads, And that even on a friendly website. Happened before and will certainly not let it happen again. Then again, it always depends what are your surfing habits. That is unless you hang out on MS websites alone you might be ok without an AV...and notice i say "might".

If you're not already, you should look into running Firefox with extensions, "NoScript", and "AdBlock". Those two will really help keep those little buggers at bay

One of the core components of my business is virus removal & spyware removal in the Windows environment. Even with antivirus / antispyware software, people still get infected. Unless you're a very advanced user and "keep your nose clean" then you are in a very small group of users that do this.

I run Symantec Endpoint protection (with the highest level of heuristic on), Spybot (active), and MalwareBytes (paid version).

We do not recommend any windows users to go on online without antivirus software. At least load AVG free or MS Security Essentials. Also, we find Web of Trust is a great tool for users who can't stay out of trouble especially in the search engines.

Also, in regards to doing scans with your antivirus software; if you have to run a scan for your Antivirus software to pick something up, sometimes it may be too late if it is serious virus it will be hard for the Antivirus software to eliminate it within the live windows environment.

THE BOTTOM LINE: GET ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE !!!

If you're system is slowing down with antivirus software, then it's a piece of crap. With hardware trends today, the costs of replacing an old system or upgrading your hardware is minimal but don't leave out the antivirus software due to hardware limitations.

I run Avast 24/7. I do a monthly cleaning just for funnzies with Vipre, Kaspersky, Emsisoft, Dr. Web Cureit, Spybot, and Malware Bytes (goes along with the whole defrag and temp files cleanup thing).

Lol, over kill much?

Usually have Symantec Corp and Malwarebytes running... live scanning. 24/7

I use Windows 7 x64 on both my Laptop at work and on my Home (Gaming) PC. I use Microsoft's Security Essentias, which I leave running 24/7. Haven't had any hassles with this setup yet

I switch back and forth between Windows and Linux, when I'm running Windows I use MSE. Who would I cry to if my entire Linux installation was spyware? Richard Stallman? I'm also using OpenDNS with FamilyShield.

I don't think you have to worry that much, it's Google's Chrome OS that's spyware