Do y'all use anything besides Windows Defender for virus protection and maintaining optimum PC performance?
I've been using Avast but think it has become a little too pricey.
TIA!

I just use Defender. Very happy with it. Have used McAfee in the past but Defender is good enough for me.

BellCountyBear said:

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Do y'all use anything besides Windows Defender for virus protection and maintaining optimum PC performance?
I've been using Avast but think it has become a little too pricey.
TIA!

---

I went back to McAfee. I help out with several folks who are connected to my McAfee. I think it's either six or 10 extra licenses they give you, so my Mom, my sister, and a couple of other folks work off mine. I don't mind paying for it just to keep Mom and sis safe

BellCountyBear said:

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Do y'all use anything besides Windows Defender for virus protection and maintaining optimum PC performance?
I've been using Avast but think it has become a little too pricey.
TIA!

---

Install Malwarebytes. It's good additional protection. The free version is great.

Also keep in mind that Windows 11 and Copilot are surveillance products. So it isn't just third parties you have to worry about. Microsoft is the virus now.

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-disable-data-tracking-features-on-windows-11

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/anti-tracking-utility-donotspy11-now-lets-you-disable-copilot

Realitybites said:

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Also keep in mind that Windows 11 and Copilot are surveillance products. So it isn't just third parties you have to worry about. Microsoft is the virus now.

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-disable-data-tracking-features-on-windows-11

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/anti-tracking-utility-donotspy11-now-lets-you-disable-copilot

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And then 10 came out, and "almost" forced you to use EDGE. Hell broke loose on MS until they updated and relaxed the requirements. Always felt Edge was surveillance too

If you're using MS products (I'm not suggesting you shouldn't), then their built-in antivirus is as good as anything you'd pay for. Running another product isn't harmful. It's just adding an additional load that has no real benefit.

Mr Tulip said:

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If you're using MS products (I'm not suggesting you shouldn't), then their built-in antivirus is as good as anything you'd pay for. Running another product isn't harmful. It's just adding an additional load that has no real benefit.

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Depends on the circumstances. I was the sole IT guy for a company that had 80+ folk. I ran a hardware firewall and a software firewall on them. Backed it up on a big cassette backup drive. Had two Windows servers and one Linux Red Hat. I would never put only the Windows antivirus on something like that. That was back in the days of Love Bug and I LOVE YOU viruses. I used McAfee with licenses if memory serves.

BTW - Red Hat was not my thing, but I put up with it. Will take Windows Server any old day, so much easier IMO

Then the last biz I worked at before I broke my back, we were installing VOIP. They wanted to do it themselves and I spoke with the boss and he said 'Let them' and gave me a couple of days off. After two days of being down, they still couldn't get it to work so I offered to come in on my second day off and help. I fixed it in about 5 minutes. Even though I had told them what not to assign, they assigned the same range of IPs as we were already using for our PCs... went outside the assigned range I was using, and low and behold, they worked!

Setup a couple of businesses for a friend of mine after that, but they were cloud based. All my knowledge of Servers felt like it just went down the drain!

Assassin said:

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Mr Tulip said:

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If you're using MS products (I'm not suggesting you shouldn't), then their built-in antivirus is as good as anything you'd pay for. Running another product isn't harmful. It's just adding an additional load that has no real benefit.

---

Depends on the circumstances. I was the sole IT guy for a company that had 80+ folk. I ran a hardware firewall and a software firewall on them. Backed it up on a big cassette backup drive. Had two Windows servers and one Linux Red Hat. I would never put only the Windows antivirus on something like that. That was back in the days of Love Bug and I LOVE YOU viruses. I used McAfee with licenses if memory serves.

BTW - Red Hat was not my thing, but I put up with it. Will take Windows Server any old day, so much easier IMO

Then the last biz I worked at before I broke my back, we were installing VOIP. They wanted to do it themselves and I spoke with the boss and he said 'Let them' and gave me a couple of days off. After two days of being down, they still couldn't get it to work so I offered to come in on my second day off and help. I fixed it in about 5 minutes. Even though I had told them what not to assign, they assigned the same range of IPs as we were already using for our PCs... went outside the assigned range I was using, and low and behold, they worked!

Setup a couple of businesses for a friend of mine after that, but they were cloud based. All my knowledge of Servers felt like it just went down the drain!

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Microsoft has improved the security leaps and bounds in the last 15 years.

Assassin said:

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Mr Tulip said:

---

If you're using MS products (I'm not suggesting you shouldn't), then their built-in antivirus is as good as anything you'd pay for. Running another product isn't harmful. It's just adding an additional load that has no real benefit.

---

Depends on the circumstances. I was the sole IT guy for a company that had 80+ folk. I ran a hardware firewall and a software firewall on them. Backed it up on a big cassette backup drive. Had two Windows servers and one Linux Red Hat. I would never put only the Windows antivirus on something like that. That was back in the days of Love Bug and I LOVE YOU viruses. I used McAfee with licenses if memory serves.

BTW - Red Hat was not my thing, but I put up with it. Will take Windows Server any old day, so much easier IMO

Then the last biz I worked at before I broke my back, we were installing VOIP. They wanted to do it themselves and I spoke with the boss and he said 'Let them' and gave me a couple of days off. After two days of being down, they still couldn't get it to work so I offered to come in on my second day off and help. I fixed it in about 5 minutes. Even though I had told them what not to assign, they assigned the same range of IPs as we were already using for our PCs... went outside the assigned range I was using, and low and behold, they worked!

Setup a couple of businesses for a friend of mine after that, but they were cloud based. All my knowledge of Servers felt like it just went down the drain!

---

During the era you're describing, PCs definitely needed 3rd party antivirus. I was working for a three letter company known for being big and blue at the time. The Nimda and CodeRed worms in particular stomped out our internal networks and brought about deep packet inspection on the network routers in order to help mitigate future attacks.

It did help identify employees running unauthorized servers, though.

With Win7, MS started to take some responsibility for OS security. Certainly by Win10, their internal threat mitigation was at least as good as a commercially available product.

Mr Tulip said:

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Assassin said:

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Mr Tulip said:

---

If you're using MS products (I'm not suggesting you shouldn't), then their built-in antivirus is as good as anything you'd pay for. Running another product isn't harmful. It's just adding an additional load that has no real benefit.

---

Depends on the circumstances. I was the sole IT guy for a company that had 80+ folk. I ran a hardware firewall and a software firewall on them. Backed it up on a big cassette backup drive. Had two Windows servers and one Linux Red Hat. I would never put only the Windows antivirus on something like that. That was back in the days of Love Bug and I LOVE YOU viruses. I used McAfee with licenses if memory serves.

BTW - Red Hat was not my thing, but I put up with it. Will take Windows Server any old day, so much easier IMO

Then the last biz I worked at before I broke my back, we were installing VOIP. They wanted to do it themselves and I spoke with the boss and he said 'Let them' and gave me a couple of days off. After two days of being down, they still couldn't get it to work so I offered to come in on my second day off and help. I fixed it in about 5 minutes. Even though I had told them what not to assign, they assigned the same range of IPs as we were already using for our PCs... went outside the assigned range I was using, and low and behold, they worked!

Setup a couple of businesses for a friend of mine after that, but they were cloud based. All my knowledge of Servers felt like it just went down the drain!

---

During the era you're describing, PCs definitely needed 3rd party antivirus. I was working for a three letter company known for being big and blue at the time. The Nimda and CodeRed worms in particular stomped out our internal networks and brought about deep packet inspection on the network routers in order to help mitigate future attacks.

It did help identify employees running unauthorized servers, though.

With Win7, MS started to take some responsibility for OS security. Certainly by Win10, their internal threat mitigation was at least as good as a commercially available product.

---

I go back to NT Server, so I saw a TON of change before my injury. And there has been a ton since

I say that technology is my "I remember when the movies cost a nickel" thing.
My first machine was the Radio Shack Color Computer, purchased with 16k RAM, then upgraded to 64k. I'd spend the day dialing up BBSes with the 300 Baud Modem I could read faster than it downloaded. I learned a lot typing in BASIC and machine-code programs from the "CoCo" magazine I got.

I'm grateful that I had to wrestle with memory addresses, IRQs, and drivers. Had to set DIP switches and jumpers to keep them from conflicting with each other. Learned so much about how things really worked doing that.

Much respect to the nerds that came before me.

Mr Tulip said:

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I say that technology is my "I remember when the movies cost a nickel" thing.
My first machine was the Radio Shack Color Computer, purchased with 16k RAM, then upgraded to 64k. I'd spend the day dialing up BBSes with the 300 Baud Modem I could read faster than it downloaded. I learned a lot typing in BASIC and machine-code programs from the "CoCo" magazine I got.

I'm grateful that I had to wrestle with memory addresses, IRQs, and drivers. Had to set DIP switches and jumpers to keep them from conflicting with each other. Learned so much about how things really worked doing that.

Much respect to the nerds that came before me.

---

Did some classes in college, Cobol and Fortran. Dont remember a thing about them as I never used them. First PC that I used was a friends on the cruise ships in 1985 or so. Then a "Portable" in 87 using 5" floppies on another ship, then jumped to an IBM 36 mainframe on yet another ship. That was interesting but I had folks on my staff that did the IT on it. After I retired from the ships, I started looking into it again. Then NT server came out and I kinda found my path.

What's weird is that I'm dyslexic and see things differently. Never could pass a cert as I would start the tests fine, but about halfway through, everything would look like spaghetti, but I had no problem setting up a server or pc from scratch.

Assassin said:

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Mr Tulip said:

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I say that technology is my "I remember when the movies cost a nickel" thing.
My first machine was the Radio Shack Color Computer, purchased with 16k RAM, then upgraded to 64k. I'd spend the day dialing up BBSes with the 300 Baud Modem I could read faster than it downloaded. I learned a lot typing in BASIC and machine-code programs from the "CoCo" magazine I got.

I'm grateful that I had to wrestle with memory addresses, IRQs, and drivers. Had to set DIP switches and jumpers to keep them from conflicting with each other. Learned so much about how things really worked doing that.

Much respect to the nerds that came before me.

---

Did some classes in college, Cobol and Fortran. Dont remember a thing about them as I never used them. First PC that I used was a friends on the cruise ships in 1985 or so. Then a "Portable" in 87 using 5" floppies on another ship, then jumped to an IBM 36 mainframe on yet another ship. That was interesting but I had folks on my staff that did the IT on it. After I retired from the ships, I started looking into it again. Then NT server came out and I kinda found my path.

What's weird is that I'm dyslexic and see things differently. Never could pass a cert as I would start the tests fine, but about halfway through, everything would look like spaghetti, but I had no problem setting up a server or pc from scratch.

---

Only HR guys ever cared about those certs. The classes could be helpful because it really was specialized knowledge, but in reality, hands-on problem solving was a skill you just had to develop by doing it. In that era, it also meant you really were interested and cared. I told people, at the time, if my childhood hobby had been RC airplanes or something, I wouldn't have a job.

I won't pretend to relate to dyslexia, but I can relate to seeing things differently. Slowing down and seeing every comma, ampersand, semi-colon, and other gibberish that goes in a command line string or a registry entry is truly a skill. Most people's eyes gloss over the "common", but slowing down and seeing the error is essential.

Mr Tulip said:

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Assassin said:

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Mr Tulip said:

---

I say that technology is my "I remember when the movies cost a nickel" thing.
My first machine was the Radio Shack Color Computer, purchased with 16k RAM, then upgraded to 64k. I'd spend the day dialing up BBSes with the 300 Baud Modem I could read faster than it downloaded. I learned a lot typing in BASIC and machine-code programs from the "CoCo" magazine I got.

I'm grateful that I had to wrestle with memory addresses, IRQs, and drivers. Had to set DIP switches and jumpers to keep them from conflicting with each other. Learned so much about how things really worked doing that.

Much respect to the nerds that came before me.

---

Did some classes in college, Cobol and Fortran. Dont remember a thing about them as I never used them. First PC that I used was a friends on the cruise ships in 1985 or so. Then a "Portable" in 87 using 5" floppies on another ship, then jumped to an IBM 36 mainframe on yet another ship. That was interesting but I had folks on my staff that did the IT on it. After I retired from the ships, I started looking into it again. Then NT server came out and I kinda found my path.

What's weird is that I'm dyslexic and see things differently. Never could pass a cert as I would start the tests fine, but about halfway through, everything would look like spaghetti, but I had no problem setting up a server or pc from scratch.

---

Only HR guys ever cared about those certs. The classes could be helpful because it really was specialized knowledge, but in reality, hands-on problem solving was a skill you just had to develop by doing it. In that era, it also meant you really were interested and cared. I told people, at the time, if my childhood hobby had been RC airplanes or something, I wouldn't have a job.

I won't pretend to relate to dyslexia, but I can relate to seeing things differently. Slowing down and seeing every comma, ampersand, semi-colon, and other gibberish that goes in a command line string or a registry entry is truly a skill. Most people's eyes gloss over the "common", but slowing down and seeing the error is essential.

---

Since nobody knew what was back in my day, it was never diagnosed until I was an adult. I was dating this girl who specialized in that kind of stuff and told her I used to spell my words weird, including my name, Paul, which became Po9. She asked if I had problems with other visual issues and told me that I probably had dyslexia. I tested, and she was correct. She took it a bit further and asked what kind of books I would read. I'm telling here stuff like Heinlen and Asimov, very technical sci-fi stuff. I had subscriptions to PopSci and PopMech. But Math and Algebra were really hard for me. She explained that with the Sci Fi and PopSci stuff, I painted pictures in my head, then I could relate to the words. Everything she told me, made perfect sense.

BTW - I've done a few command line strings, in retrospect, I'm not sure how!

Assassin said:

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Always felt Edge was surveillance too

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It absolutely is. I sold my last Windows computer (a desktop I didn't really have room for anymore) and am exclusively on Linux now. Debian Mint with the Gnome 3 UI on the mini PCs hooked up to our TVs, Debian Mint with Cinnamon on the laptop.

But I might switch that over to Gnome 3/GDM as well.

It sounds like Windows is failing in real time. "Statcounter released a new report showing a noticeable decrease in Windows 11's worldwide market share since Feb 2024. The struggling Windows 11 fell below 26%." Windows 10 reaches EOL for consumers in two months.

Linux has matured to the point that it is an easy choice for personal and enterprise machines even if you just deploy Ubuntu.

https://linuxvox.com/blog/switching-to-linux/

I would say the majority of end user adolescents are now reaching adulthood only having used iOS/Mac OS/Android/Chrome OS.

Realitybites said:

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Assassin said:

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Always felt Edge was surveillance too

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It absolutely is. I sold my last Windows computer (a desktop I didn't really have room for anymore) and am exclusively on Linux now. Debian Mint with the Gnome 3 UI on the mini PCs hooked up to our TVs, Debian Mint with Cinnamon on the laptop.

But I might switch that over to Gnome 3/GDM as well.

It sounds like Windows is failing in real time. "Statcounter released a new report showing a noticeable decrease in Windows 11's worldwide market share since Feb 2024. The struggling Windows 11 fell below 26%." Windows 10 reaches EOL for consumers in two months.

Linux has matured to the point that it is an easy choice for personal and enterprise machines even if you just deploy Ubuntu.

https://linuxvox.com/blog/switching-to-linux/https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/freeze-us-foreign-aid-will-result-humanitarian-disaster

I would say the majority of end user adolescents are now reaching adulthood only having used iOS/Mac OS/Android/Chrome OS.

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You are showing me how much tech stuff I've lost since my accident. I was working with Red Hat and Windows Server 2012R2 when our business crashed, then I broke my back. Debian Mint, Gnome, and Cinnamon are all Greek to me!

BTW - Linux was HARD back in those days. We had Red Hat at first and switched over to Ubuntu if memory serves. (but that was a long time ago!)

Linux is as easy as MacOS for most distributions on most computers these days.

Microsoft Sends 60 Day Warning To Windows 10 Users

On Aug. 16, Windows 10 users may have noticed a message on their devices, warning that they have 60 days left to take action before security and feature updates and technical support for their PC ends on Oct. 14.

Microsoft announced in 2023 that it was ending support for its Windows 10 platform as it rolled out Windows 11calling it its "home for AI"and its "most secure version of Windows ever" due to "hardware-based" advanced security features.

"Companies and organizations that operate Windows 10 may find it challenging to maintain regulatory compliance with unsupported software," Microsoft said in a blog post in June.
Not all PC users are able to or want to switch to a new operating system that offers new AI functionalities. Some older devices are not compatible with Windows 11, due to the system's increased processing and hardware requirements. According to market share data, around 700 million PC users, or 43 percent, are still using Windows 10, which was launched in July 2015.

Realitybites said:

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Linux is as easy as MacOS for most distributions on most computers these days.

Microsoft Sends 60 Day Warning To Windows 10 Users

On Aug. 16, Windows 10 users may have noticed a message on their devices, warning that they have 60 days left to take action before security and feature updates and technical support for their PC ends on Oct. 14.

Microsoft announced in 2023 that it was ending support for its Windows 10 platform as it rolled out Windows 11calling it its "home for AI"and its "most secure version of Windows ever" due to "hardware-based" advanced security features.

"Companies and organizations that operate Windows 10 may find it challenging to maintain regulatory compliance with unsupported software," Microsoft said in a blog post in June.
Not all PC users are able to or want to switch to a new operating system that offers new AI functionalities. Some older devices are not compatible with Windows 11, due to the system's increased processing and hardware requirements. According to market share data, around 700 million PC users, or 43 percent, are still using Windows 10, which was launched in July 2015.

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I know everyone used to get tired of having to pay for Windows upgrades in the past. Shoot, I remember having to pay for DOS upgrades