smart computer use?

So I switched over to AntiVir from AVG.

Please note that I’m talking about the personal editions I use at home. Good stuff. Good to know that anti-virus software doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. Or I guess I could switch to Mac, since Mac apparently has no virus appeal. But the time are changing, Mac is becoming a virus target.

I think it’ll be a good move. I’ve read lots of mixed reviews about all the various top-recommended anti-virus software out there. It’s hard to pick a good one. I’ve never felt like paying money for McAffee or Norton, since there’s some good freebies for personal use.

A recent trip to a local computer tech revealed some scoffing towards AVG free. I was a bit surprised. I figure I have nothing to lose trying something else out. I guess I’ve never really had any bad luck with any type of anti-virus, free or paid. I decided to give AntiVir a run. Looks like it’s made by Germans.

The only differences I can see so far:

• AntiVir has a nice little umbrella icon instead of a multi-colored four shape icon.
• AntiVir is downloading updates from the AntiVir site at about 40k per second, AVG downloaded at about 170k per second or better depending on how my lousy cable connection is faring for the day.

Hopefully I’m not searching out new virus protection soon. I’d like to stick with AntiVir just cause I don’t feel like installing another anti-virus application on this machine.

Coding Horror once again has a great article with some great insight. This time it has to do with trojans, viruses, and running your Windows machine in an account that IS NOT THE ADMINISTRATOR.

If you aren’t already aware, people that run Linux and Mac operating systems rarely have to install any sort of anti-virus software on their machine. Windows is quite the opposite.

But, there are people that claim they can use Windows without anti-virus software and not feel worried.

Virus protection seems almost mandatory on a Windows system, unless you are really a Windows security guru.

Separating yourself from needing to use virus protection on your computer system is ultimately a smart move. Moving to an operating system that is not targeted by virus writers is a good idea, but not always feasible.

When using Windows, the idea of not using virus protection is almost laughable.

Anyways, back to the point about not running your Windows machine as an administrator.

This is a grand idea. If you don’t run your Windows machine as an administrator user, you are cutting off a lot of the abilities of viruses to wreak havoc on your machine.

The bottom line is this: don’t use your Windows machine as an admin user. Set up a separate user account and use that. That will make it much harder for a program to take control of your machine with administrator rights to your machine.