Too Many Antivirus Programs?

Dieselman

Level 1
Thread author
Mar 26, 2011
762
Keith has Norton AntiVirus, Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, SUPERAntiSpyware, Windows Defender, and Windows Firewall. Is this overkill?

Here is a great article to read for those paranoia freaks. A few Wilders members need to read this. LOL.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/225240/too_many_antivirus_programs.html#tk.hp_new
 

jamescv7

Level 85
Verified
Honorary Member
Mar 15, 2011
13,070
Indeed running many programs in realtime will caused conflict and definitely it will not increase your protection with that overkill.
 
G

Guest28

Wow that's alot of overlapping security and who uses windows defender? I always thought it sounded like a rogue... anyways 2 real time scanners is crazy.
 

bogdan

Level 1
Jan 7, 2011
1,362
Adding a second signature based real time security software, contrary to some believes won't double your detection. In the best case detection might increase by a small percent. But in almost all cases you'll end up having a lower detection because the two real-time programs will conflict with eachother. This can happen even when you combine an antivirus with an antispyware program since technically they behave in a similar way. Antispyware apps appeared when a niche line of business evolved because most antivirus vendors ignored spyware, considering it to be not really malicious. A big mistake on their part that is now being fixed since most antivirus apps also detect spyware. There might be some exceptions since some antispyware and antivirus (Immunet for example) vendors might improve compatibility with existing antivirus apps. The stability of your system should be your main concern.
 

Jack

Administrator
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Jan 24, 2011
9,377
The question is why on earth would you add two real time scanners when you can have installe 10 on-demand scanners with no real problem:p
The answer : You are a security noob or more lik!
Even in my "noob days" It never came in my mind to install 2 antiviruses... :shok:
 

Dieselman

Level 1
Thread author
Mar 26, 2011
762
There are tons of people who do this. Just check out Wilders. Heck even some on here using 2 HIPS together.
 

Dejan

New Member
Mar 3, 2011
559
This happened to me at some point, before I knew about this last year or something, I installed Avast 5 and ran it alongside ESET (originally because I thought ESET wasn't working, but I didn't care later on thinking it would help). Nothing noticeable happened, until some issue with the wires cut off Internet service for all of us, when I fixed it somehow, everything was working, except the computer that was running 2 AV's. After a few days of no internet on that computer, a friend disabled Avast and immediately, internet's back. My sister is still running AVG and Avast thinking that AVG doesn't run in real-time now, I'm still waiting for something to break :p
 

Tweak

New Member
Jan 8, 2011
274
Happens far too often...and happened yesterday. Friends/Clients/Fellow church members called yesterday evening saying that they had removed CyberDefender Antivirus and installed the NIS2011 I had set them up with for their desktop and two laptops and stated it wouldn't contact the activation server. I asked are you online otherwise and they said yes, then I said so you can surf the net, they said no, I knew then it would be easier to just drive down the road and resolve it. Went over and looked and saw MSE so removed and *poof, back online so continued to install updates to windows, java, adobe, and add CCleaner to the desktop. Bit more info than needed but this goes to show that people are fairly clueless about so many aspects of their PC, as Dman and I have discussed before this is very common where security overlaps, is out of date, is not activated, configured, and other aspects of the system are neglected. Sorry for the deviation slightly from topic but it goes along with and mentions the obvious overlap they had, luckily they removed CyberDefender themselves but missed MSE and stated they didn't even realize it was installed. (Apparently some other guy at the church had just graduated from somewhere and it related to computers somehow and was the one that suggested CD, not really sure what he deal is other than being wrong...haha)
 

bogdan

Level 1
Jan 7, 2011
1,362
People invest too much time & energy in finding something that will make their system 100% secure. Something like this does not exist. We need to assume that our security will fail at some point and have measures in place that will limit the damage.
 

Dieselman

Level 1
Thread author
Mar 26, 2011
762
Ummmmmmmmmmmmm. You elliot. Your sig shows Geswall and Comodo. Unless you disabled D+ but why on earth would you do that anyways.
 

LoftedAphid86

New Member
Feb 24, 2011
1,107
Dieselman said:
Ummmmmmmmmmmmm. You elliot. Your sig shows Geswall and Comodo. Unless you disabled D+ but why on earth would you do that anyways.
GeSWall is an isolation type IPS, not a classical HIPS..
 

bogdan

Level 1
Jan 7, 2011
1,362
There is nothing wrong in disabling D+. You get a good software firewall, actually this is one of the 3 options you have when you install Comodo Firewall. You do however need something that will prevent malware to use other software usually allowed through firewalls to connect to the Internet.
 

Dieselman

Level 1
Thread author
Mar 26, 2011
762
They both do the same thing. D+ is just as good. Avast and Comodo with D+ will provided all the protection you need. If you disable D+ you loose Comodo's ability to be leak proof. D+ is the back bone of Comodo.
 

LoftedAphid86

New Member
Feb 24, 2011
1,107
Dieselman said:
They both do the same thing. D+ is just as good. Avast and Comodo with D+ will provided all the protection you need.
I have others using my computer.
Anyway, this is neither the time nor the place.
 

LochNess

New Member
Apr 2, 2011
87
bogdan said:
We need to assume that our security will fail at some point and have measures in place that will limit the damage.

'Well Said' Bogdan... IMO, a viable and clean system image is not only necessary but is critical and provides 'peace of mind'... Its importance cannot be understated...
 

bogdan

Level 1
Jan 7, 2011
1,362
Sure, you loose protection by disabling D+ but you can still filter packets. It is a flexible product, you can use it anyway you want. If you don't like the built-in Windows firewall and you can't find a replacement that uses the Windows Filtering Platform (fwpkclnt.sys - the kernel mode client) the Comodo Firewall without D+ will have to do. But this is obviously only if you don't want/need HIPS.
 

jamescv7

Level 85
Verified
Honorary Member
Mar 15, 2011
13,070
Well honestly before being a novice user using AVG free and install PC Tools AV :)lolz:) lucky I removed it caused its nearly to crash.
 

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