You don't just need protection from keyloggers that are trying to get your password though. There are others ways for these hackers to steal your information, so I would get an anti virus program back on your computer, just to be safe.Perhaps try a different one to the one that was giving you issues before?
Well, just in case you were disappointed with the product you received after purchasing it you could've just contacted the customer support and ask for a refund or anything like that, there are many anti-virus developers that offer kind of a 30 days money back system in order to refund you the money in case you did not like the product/service, I do not really know how reliable that is, but I will have to find out.
@DreekLass, The thing is, I have been going only to "safe" sites, so I think I got the virus from torrent sites, since according to Wikipedia that's where it originated. My sound issues are maybe driver related since it was reformatted when the problem started. Maybe I will just use AVG again. My RAM has decreased to from 1 GB to 960 MB. So I'm afraid that an anti-virus software will slow my PC down.
I once considered paid, but I'm a programmer, and I know the odds of my computer being hacked or getting messed up with a virus of some sort. If you know what you are doing, and you don't plan to download potential dangerous things, then you don't need paid software. Free does a good job with searching your files for potential dangerous stuff, so I always stick with the free. But if I had a business or something like that, I would use a paid protection.
I used to make a good living cleaning viruses from my clients' computers. From my experience, I found that any one single anti-virus software cannot cover everything. I need to use a battery of anti-virus software to do the job properly. So if I were to buy the paid version of every software I use, I would have to pay a lot of money. To save money, I use trial versions. When they expire, I delete them completely and use another one. There are also some free software which works very well. At the moment, I am using Bitdefender. Truth be told, the real protection against virus infection is somewhat like practicing safe sex. Using a condom is good. Not having indiscriminate sex partners is even better. So if you are careful about what sites you visit, you greatly reduce the chances of being infected with a virus.
Have you? I have taken that approach before, but sometimes it simply cannot be avoided stumbling upon websites that are dangerous. Even trusted websites sometimes have these malicious pop-ups on them, and then you have to wipe your entire computer because of a virus that you might have been able to avoid. Have you got a flash drive that you can keep anti virus software on? That way if your computer has an issue, you can clean it up from your flash drive.
@DreekLass, I do have a flash drive, but it's used to store ebooks and music. It also bummed me out because Avast took 5 hours to scan a newly formatted PC which has zero 3rd party programs installed in it. I'm using XP now too, with a more ancient motherboard, so that's why I figured that I'll install and uninstall it when I want to scan my PC instead of leaving the antivirus there.
I do use a paid version of Eset Nod32. I've been using this antivirus for years and i have no complaints. It's cut out for the job an helps my computer run smoothly. On top of that, i also use Malwarebytes, free version. I believe Malwarebytes is not exactly antivirus.
Some anti-viruses are very big when it comes to size, so depending on what type of flash drive you have, it will vary. One thing I hate about all antivirus software is that they always take hours to scan the entire computer, which can be so annoying.
@DreekLass, True, My flash drive is 4 GB, and only 1 GB is free. The 2 GB one is already full. So I won't store the antivirus there. How long does it take for your antivirus to scan your whole PC?
One gig should be enough, depending upon which antivirus you choose to go with. It can take anywhere from four hours or more to fully scam my computer with malwarebytes, because I have a lot of files on my computer. It always depends upon how many files any one system contains.
@DreekLass, Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I also am not keen on having an anti-virus installed, I don't want to slow down my PC as I browse with all that scanning. It doesn't seem to harm my PC, so I will just let it be.
My anti-virus doesn't slow my computer down generally. But it is definitely slower whilst doing a full scan. I have thousands upon thousands of files for it to scan, and doing any sort of online work whilst it is scanning is a nightmare. Once it gets done going slowly, it begins to crash, and I lose work. So I have to choose carefully when to do the scan.
@DreekLass, That's what I'm talking about, that's why I opt to not install one anymore. My PC seems to work just fine without it. Did you ever catch any viruses that were harmful though? I google the viruses that my AV detects, and they just steal info rather than do harm to the PC.
I am in flux right now with the anti-virus. I just bought 2 new laptops and retired my old one. I put the trial version of AVG on them. That expired and I went back to the free version. I guess I might wait until I start having problems. I had the paid version on my old laptop. I will probably end up doing that again. But the free ones seem to be working really good right now!
There have been times when my malwarebytes has caught me before doing something malicious or following malicious links, and I have thought to myself, 'If I didn't have this installed, I might have just been in a lot of trouble.' And what is scarier is that there would have been no indication otherwise, and I would have continued to enter my personal information, not knowing that my computer was compromised.
I don't know what mine are, aside from malwarebytes now that I see it mentioned. I have a few; the best of the best all recommended by the "tech Geeks" of the interwebs. None of them are perfect, so where one misses something, the other will find it. Not everyone needs so much protection really, but I damn the man and get everything for free lol;. bit riskier.
@DreekLass, Most of what's being detected are spyware or adware anyway, so for me, as long as I have Key Scrambler installed then I think I'm good.
Keyloggers are and can be very advanced these days. They were back when I was learning about hacking, so now they must be even more advanced. They were able to do a lot more than just log your key strokes so they probably are much more malicious these days. Especially that ransomware, which charges you money.
The unfortunate truth is that, no matter what anti-virus software you are using, paid or free, sooner or later, you will be hit by a virus. It's kind of like driving on the highway. If you drive all the time, your chances of getting involved in an accident will become higher and higher. On the highway, it's not just your driving that can cause or not cause an accident. Every other driver on the highway contributes to the possibility of an accident. Same with the computer. We can be as careful as we want to. However, that doesn't mean everyone is just as careful. There have been many incidents in the past where a virus attack is the result of a weakness in the software produced by a major software house. So, about the only real thing we can do about it is to make sure that we always have an up-to-date copy of our important data stored in a number of places.
