I have been computer free for probably 15ish years until I recently bought and set up a RPi4 with Linux. It’s been fun but I’m not really a super user so I’m looking to back to Windows as my main OS.
- is antivirus a necessity? I will be gaming and streaming on my new setup.
If yes then
- what are some ideal options? Paid or free.
Thanks for your responses in advance.
If you stay away from sketchy sites and don’t click every link that says “DOWNLOAD NOW”, Windows Defender and a web browser with ad-blockers should do their job well enough.
And if you buy a pc with windows preinstalled, remove any anti virus software free trial bullshit that cones with it. Just use Windows defender as it is already enough for most use cases
Better yet, format Windows when you buy a new pc.
You can download a clean iso directly from Microsoft.
For years I always defaulted to Avast until it literally blocked Halo Infinite from running without any warnings or explanation so I finally looked into it—windows defender is fine. Basically all antivirus programs have become what they claim to defend against—malware. Likely the only actual defense you need these days is a VPN but that’s really only if you’re up to some shady shit to begins with, such as wanting to protect your privacy.
Actually no, a VPN does not protect your computer at all.
Edit: Neither your privacy. You’re mostly tracked though cookies and other identifiers on the application level. A VPN only helps to hide your IP address on the network layer, but you don’t really need that.
Um acktually
do you need an immune-system?
or is AIDS fine with you?
the answer to that question is the answer to whether your computer needs an immune-system.
get ESET.
Unless things have changed significantly, VirusBulletin, iirc always had them catching more of the in-the-wild viruses than any of the other ones.
Kaspersky is Russian, so you don’t want to be trusting it.
There are more computer-pathogens now than there were a few years ago, not less.
Pathogens multiply, just like humans do.
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