I've been reinstalling my OS every 30 days or so for the past 7+ years. I don't give viruses a chance to take root. I only run a firewall also. I notice when I do the reinstall, my computer runs faster at first but then slows down a bit. After a few months it gets to be routine.
What a waste of time and not to talk about having to re-activate stuff that needs an email / phone call. Why not do this: do a clean install, make a backup with acronis and then copy this to a DVD. (HDD may not be enough) Every time M$N comes out with a patch then boot from the Acronis emergency boot CD and restore from DVD. Use another computer or if you have broadband use a Linux live CD to browse the web. If, for whatever reason I suspect that something strange is happening, I will do a restore. Been doing this since 2000 and have had no problems. This after two computers got infected, one was running MacFee and the other Norton. AV slows down your computer far too much. Xena
First off if you are real worried about security, you can run a dual boot machine with linux. I run Ubuntu. Second, you do not need an antivirus at all if you know what you are doing. Firewall I agree with, but not AV. If you want to realm the internet dangerously and download shit and codecs and cracks just use a "Virtual machine" via the free program VIRTUALBOX. Install VIRTUALBOX, then install windows onto that virtual machine. Load it on top of your current operating system that you do not want to infect and you can have a field day on the internet with no worries. You can at the end of the day just revert back to your clean installation. I used to test viruses using VMware like this.
Agree. Virtualization is WTG for dividing same physical machine for secure and less secure zones running at the same time.
I've been using PC's longer than some of you have been breathing. I NEVER run with a live anti virus. I use on demand scanning only. I visit all kinds of sites. I can't remember the last time I caught ANYTHING at all. Many years and maybe once. 99.9% of virus/trojan prevention is user related. Apparently there are quite a few dimwits out there. I saw something suspicious the other day. I spent time researching it, and eventually figured out it was something left behind by a process (rootkit detector) that had aborted. And yes, I have a VM installed to sandbox suspicious stuff, but have never actually had a problem.