Avira Update troubles again

[George.J]

Here's a better method of removing Avira completly from your system as recommended at Avira forum
http://www.avira.com/en/support-for-...etail/kbid/135

[Feline]

Thank you!

As of now, Avira is history on my computer. It was a tough decision and it might well be I go back to it some day, but right now I'm willing to take my chances without any antivirus at all.

When I think back to my Win98SE days, I never had an antivirus and never had any viruses. All I had was the Sygate firewall and SpyBot, and every couple of weeks I would go to an online virus scanner, mostly Housecall.

I first got an antivirus - Avira - when I changed to WinXP in 2009 (yes, I kept 98SE that long), because it was said XP was a lot more vulnerable. It was indeed, as it got me my first virus in 2010. Avira noticed the virus and beeped dramatically, but that was about all it did. It didn't prevent the infection, nor did it do anything against it afterwards. I had to reinstall my system.

The virus had a good effect on me in so far that I became more aware of my security. I got my old Sygate firewall back that I had dropped when I got XP. I discovered Sandboxie and Time Freeze, likely the two greatest and most valuable programs I've ever came upon. I dropped SpyBot and got SAS and Sophos RootKit what's-its-name. Add to it the CCleaner and, for years and years now, my good old Mailwasher. My main browser runs Noscript, Better Privacy, KarmaBlocker etc.

For the most part, I'm pretty much a low risk surfer and go online with Sandboxie alone. From time to time I enter riskier waters and watch a movie online, or chase all kinds of live streams for my cherished F1 race. On such occasions, I additionally run Time Freeze. And this for a reason, as it was one such really crappy looking live stream site that caused the one single moment Avira had to beep alert again. It didn't bother me much, as Time Freeze was running and whatever it had been that caused the alert, it was gone after restart. I always shut down that way after such excursions, whether there was an alert or not.

On the other hand, Avira caused me two times problems with bad updates, ask.com spam, unwanted toolbars and what not. Other than that, it sat there and more or less did nothing but pestering for its updates. Oh, lest I forget, it noticed that bad virus back in 2010. I dare say I would have noticed it as well without Avira. And had I already had Time Freeze back then, it wouldn't have been the disaster it was.

Aw, sorry for the lengthy babble! It's quite a step to throw out your antivrus and I reckon everyone will call me nuts because of it.

But I'm kinda curious how far I'll get without it. I've often wondered if Avira (or the even less likable Avast or any other antivirus) were worth the effort and bother, and I guess I'll find out.

Feline


p.s. I'll let you all know if I catch something bad; so you can view it as some sort of experiment...

[bo.elam]

Originally Posted by Feline

I've often wondered if Avira (or the even less likable Avast or any other antivirus) were worth the effort and bother, and I guess I'll find out.

Feline, those are the words of someone that's ready to go without an antivirus.

The main reason why I dropped using one was to avoid messy updates, in my case, SBIE makes it possible. Its been a year and a half sinceI stopped using MSE and I have now gone even farther and dropped having on demand scanners installed on my system. The result, no infections and a stress less Bo.

Whenever I want to run a scan or try a new program, I just fire up the same lifght virtualization program that you have and get it done. Its been great doing it like this.

Bo

[Concerned User]

Originally Posted by Feline

Thank you!


Aw, sorry for the lengthy babble! It's quite a step to throw out your antivrus and I reckon everyone will call me nuts because of it.

Feline


p.s. I'll let you all know if I catch something bad; so you can view it as some sort of experiment...

You're not nuts....However, you should understand what you're getting yourself into without having any sort of AV package running constantly...There are many threads which can be found on the interwebs (including this forum) about people throwing out their AV packages and living peacefully..

In the end, it boils down to the user.....if you use non admin accounts, have regular backups, stick to safe sites, use a program like sandboxie for "unsafe" browsing, keep both your software and OS updated regularly, have disabled stuff like autorun, autoplay et al.., you should be safe without an AV.

I'm using a very similar setup. However, I have a copy of portable emsisoft for just in case scenarios, you know, my friend gives me his thumb drive and I doubt whether one of the files are malware.

In those cases, a portable AV is useful.

[Feline]

Originally Posted by Feline

p.s. I'll let you all know if I catch something bad; so you can view it as some sort of experiment...

Not sure if I should dig up such an old thread, but since I said I'll let you know...

My Avira/Antivirus-less system ran peacefully and virus/trojan/malware-free for years - until this late February 2018 when its mainboard died. RIP, old buddy!

Now it will be a new computer with a 'new' OS (Windows 7) - and the same setup will be tried again.

Hope it works as fine as the old one!