General Discussions

I actually use 3 different types of anti-virus on several of my machines. Just to note, never run more then one per machine. Doing so not only messes up performance, it causes conflicts that leave you open to infections. That being said, I use Kaspersky, Trend Micro, and one I like to avoid but still use is Norton. Mostly because Norton lags my high end pcs. Reason I use different brands on different machines is some work better than others, and I was also having issues where one brand would cause BSOD on one machine when another it would work fine, and all my pcs I built myself. Well almost all. My kids built their first ones a few years back under my guidance. But as far as it goes, Trend worked great for me once I added not the file, but the whole folder to the exception list. Before I learned of CH, Id end up going to websites that the programs were not more of an issue, then the advertisements in them that were highly infected. You can easily get the versions that sell in stores like BestBuy that sell for $60 to $120 on Amazon or a trustful seller on Ebay sometimes for as little as $12 that will cover from 3 to 5 devices. Always buy the boxed version. Never ever buy the versions where they ask you for a credit card. That's one of their biggest scams where you get 6 months to a year for $40, and before you know it, renewal ends up showing on your statement from $150 to $200. Another scam you should be aware of are the free virus scans. Never let them touch your pc. Most people who go in to get this done, most likely had clean machines, but ended up leaving infected. Just watch next time your in one of those stores, and you see them take a flash drive out of one laptop, and put it in another. Whatever that PC had, will now be on the machine they run their software on. You most likely wont see the results of the damage till weeks later. Safest way to test for infections, are the packages that have a boot cd, that can load off the cd instead of the hard drive.
Also, if your pc is already infected, installing antivirus wont fix the issue. Many think it will. Best bet, is get an external hard drive you can boot off of, and install a fresh OS with antivirus, and boot off the external, then scan your drives to remove the infections. I make constant backups, so if I do get infected, I just format the drives, and reinstall the image I made. I got tired of trying to fix files to find out another was bad that did more damage than the virus itself.

[Edited by sirXanthor, 1/27/2018 11:04:36 PM]

So I have decided on Bitdefender as it does not interfere.. so far anyways lol I also have comodo firewall which seams to really dislike cheathappens.com had to use the comodo dragon browser to access it. Guess ill have to figure that out later time to play some tyrany 😀

Link

I would watch out for Bitdefender.
I ran them for a few years, and they slowly started not only getting SUPER bloated with crud I didnt want, and that took up SO much cpu resources, but it also started treating more and more of my regular files as infected. Well, the false positives went through the roof, to the point I could barely do anything. Needless to say, I quit using it, and started using Avira, and things were awesome with Avira for years and years, until last year, were they started taking control away from me, and hiding options more, and this year started messing with my computer. Just like BD did back in the day. I know Norton recently rebuilt from the ground up (again, like they did in what? 2006?) to slipstream everything, and make it more lightweight, and it still catches as much as anyone else. So, for me, Norton it is, until they start putting in stuff I dont want or need or cant turn off. But for now, they are the best, lightest, fastest AV out there, AND I can turn stuff off I dont want. I hope BD works for you though. If you arent in the US, I would say use Eset NOD32. Its the best on foreign os'es, or was, back when I was in the game still, which was 2015.

Standard guide per usual (last updated late December 2016) for securing your PC. Only section not recommended is the EMET section as the options there have potential to really mess up trainer operations:
Link

Very good writeup for security.
I would add to scan with something like Malwarebytes, no need for paid version) every once in a while.
And, like someone else here said, backup your system with a backup utility. Windows System Protection is NOT a secure backup option, as viruses have and can exploit it. It is ok for if you installed a bad driver, or a game updated that crashes your computer, or sminimal stuff like that, but it isnt a useful backup program to get you back to a completely safe, normal, virus free version you dont need to have take up 1-10 points from MS, and eventually having to call them because you installed too many times (and installls take SO long, where a backup can take as little as an hour).
Hopefully you make a backup right after you install windows offline, then install an antivirus, then get online and do all the updates you can, and install all the software you ussually use all the time, make another backup, then start installing everything and importing if need be, and make your final backup protected. This way, you have the option to go back before a certain update like Anniversary edition, or the latest one that came out that hosed everyone. Or you can go back to a fresh install of everything to just make your computer faster again with all the apps installed.
I would also suggest an app that you can either manually or auto update certain folders for you, like all of your music, save games, pics, etc. I wish I would have done this my last machine I built, but I forgot, and my os hdd went out and I lost everything except the games that I had on the D drive that saved to the D drive.

I use Norton, it work's well & no issues to report 🙂