Windows 11 is out!

[Elvis Starburst]

Nowadays that's not really a thing anymore, nor are viruses really an issue. Nor do people really get tons of spyware slowing down their machines anymore

Dude, what? Got a source for any of that opinion?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Dude, what? Got a source for any of that opinion?

Being the IT go to for friends and family for over 20 years. Guess what happens now on Malwarebytes scans vs 20 years ago? I used to scan computers and get tons of spyware to remove. Now, I usually don't even bother running a scan, and if the computer is running slow, it's because they have a real hard drive and not a lot of RAM. Do you know what they complain about now? Windows fucking updates and Windows in general, I do much more debloating Windows than removing spyware nowadays. My DJ friend has an old Dell laptop with a real hard drive and it would literally take an hour to do Windows updates sometimes and she needs to use the laptop to work. So I disabled Windows update, debloated Windows, and disabled Windows Defender as well. And she hasn't had an issue with it for like a year now since I "fixed" it, it just works like a computer is supposed to.

 

[bluegate]

Being the IT go to for friends and family for over 20 years. Guess what happens now on Malwarebytes scans vs 20 years ago? I used to scan computers and get tons of spyware to remove. Now, I usually don't even bother running a scan, and if the computer is running slow, it's because they have a real hard drive and not a lot of RAM. Do you know what they complain about now? Windows fucking updates and Windows in general, I do much more debloating Windows than removing spyware nowadays. My DJ friend has an old Dell laptop with a real hard drive and it would literally take an hour to do Windows updates sometimes and she needs to use the laptop to work. So I disabled Windows update, debloated Windows, and disabled Windows Defender as well. And she hasn't had an issue with it for like a year now since I "fixed" it, it just works like a computer is supposed to.

Why not also tell the person to go out and buy an SSD and put that in the laptop for them?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Why not also tell the person to go out and buy an SSD and put that in the laptop for them?

The computer just needs to run and it's fine. I did get her an SSD as an external for all the music for this jukebox program that is set to use the external as the drive. I didn't feel like having to figure out how to configure this jukebox program. She had 2 external drives that were real hard drives and one crashed and I'm like you need an SSD for these because they will crash rather quickly with tossing them around and stuff.

 

[gorfias]

Then you update when something doesn't work like new software you want to run. The vast vast vast majority of all hacking against home users is some kind of phishing / social engineering attempt. Something like Ublock Origin is a far better tool to stop hackers than updating Windows or having Windows Defender running (I got that garbage disabled, it's so annoying at work let alone at home) because it might actually stop you from going to some fake bank or Amazon site with a bad link. Really keeping your browser up to date is more important than your OS because the browser is how you actually check your bank accounts and whatnot. Going to bad sites is how people get hacked, an OS security update isn't gonna matter.

Caught a bug and Windows Defender? I'd scan my C: drive and my PC would shut off. Downloaded AVG and it found issues and cleaned them.
Windows Defender is becoming a default for many users but I think that simply means hackers will program specifically to beat it.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Caught a bug and Windows Defender? I'd scan my C: drive and my PC would shut off. Downloaded AVG and it found issues and cleaned them.
Windows Defender is becoming a default for many users but I think that simply means hackers will program specifically to beat it.

I really can't stand Windows Defender as I work IT and when I'm trying to do stuff at work (it could just be installing something) and it's taking forever, I open up task manager and yup, it's fucking Antimalware Service Executable service pinging the CPU to 100%. Let me use the freaking PC. It is really rare for a normal home user to get a virus just from normal use nowadays. You normally have to be doing some shady things (trying to get something for free) or opening email attachments you're not supposed to.

 

[gorfias]

I really can't stand Windows Defender as I work IT and when I'm trying to do stuff at work (it could just be installing something) and it's taking forever, I open up task manager and yup, it's fucking Antimalware Service Executable service pinging the CPU to 100%. Let me use the freaking PC. It is really rare for a normal home user to get a virus just from normal use nowadays. You normally have to be doing some shady things (trying to get something for free) or opening email attachments you're not supposed to.

As I did tech work 10 years ago, a buddy still asks me to come to his work place to help with his network when there is trouble. I'm an amateur and don't ask for anything. Usually get a martini for my troubles! But last time I put my laptop on his network. Big mistake. I had to factory default it. I told him if he needs any help I need him to bring his own laptop in next time.

Lately freaking Facebook is horrifying me. There will be an interesting picture with some text and you cannot see all of the text so you click it thinking to just expand the picture and instead, you are taken to suspicious sites. Some look like downright malware sites. Some will comment on the pic stating just that. I post a joke on Facebook and I get a moderator's note saying lacks context but people can put outright malware links on the site?!?!

I had phone link, very convenient but disabled when it could not block fishing texts that my phone itself does but it is so convenient I re-enabled it. Just going to have to be super careful.

But yeah, there's a lot of bad actors out there. And I think we need a lot more than Windows Defender.

 

[Worgen]

As I did tech work 10 years ago, a buddy still asks me to come to his work place to help with his network when there is trouble. I'm an amateur and don't ask for anything. Usually get a martini for my troubles! But last time I put my laptop on his network. Big mistake. I had to factory default it. I told him if he needs any help I need him to bring his own laptop in next time.

Lately freaking Facebook is horrifying me. There will be an interesting picture with some text and you cannot see all of the text so you click it thinking to just expand the picture and instead, you are taken to suspicious sites. Some look like downright malware sites. Some will comment on the pic stating just that. I post a joke on Facebook and I get a moderator's note saying lacks context but people can put outright malware links on the site?!?!

I had phone link, very convenient but disabled when it could not block fishing texts that my phone itself does but it is so convenient I re-enabled it. Just going to have to be super careful.

But yeah, there's a lot of bad actors out there. And I think we need a lot more than Windows Defender.

Windows defender is much better then having nothing and sometimes windows defender is really good. The landscape is always changing and you have to be ready for it.

 

[gorfias]

Windows defender is much better then having nothing and sometimes windows defender is really good. The landscape is always changing and you have to be ready for it.

I used to be told that there are no such things as viruses for Mac computers but I think the reality was, as at one point they made up only 5% of the market, bad actors weren't really creating the viruses for such a small % of the market. Whole large organizations are now using Windows Defender so, I'm thinking programing specifically to beat it is attractive to these kinds of people.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Lately freaking Facebook is horrifying me. There will be an interesting picture with some text and you cannot see all of the text so you click it thinking to just expand the picture and instead, you are taken to suspicious sites. Some look like downright malware sites. Some will comment on the pic stating just that. I post a joke on Facebook and I get a moderator's note saying lacks context but people can put outright malware links on the site?!?!

If you're use Facebook on the phone (linux), you ain't going to get anything from clicking on that stuff. If you're using Facebook on your computer, adblocking should block all the garbage. Adblock is more important than anti-virus these days just from a pure security standpoint.

 

[gorfias]

If you're use Facebook on the phone (linux), you ain't going to get anything from clicking on that stuff. If you're using Facebook on your computer, adblocking should block all the garbage. Adblock is more important than anti-virus these days just from a pure security standpoint.

That's a relief. I got that on my firefox browser.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

That's a relief. I got that on my firefox browser.

And then Firefox is less likely to get hacked as well since it doesn't have much market share. Plus, if there's a massive vulnerability in Chrome, then like every other browser probably has it too since just about every one of them is Chromium based now.

A lot of times on my phone I'll open those Facebook posts in my actual browser vs just the basic system browser it uses by default as I use Kiwi Browser because it allows for extensions to be installed (as almost all mobile browsers don't and I like it a bit more than mobile Firefox) so I have ublock on it and it'll remove all those annoying ads on those pages.

 

[Worgen]

I used to be told that there are no such things as viruses for Mac computers but I think the reality was, as at one point they made up only 5% of the market, bad actors weren't really creating the viruses for such a small % of the market. Whole large organizations are now using Windows Defender so, I'm thinking programing specifically to beat it is attractive to these kinds of people.

There was a whole ad campaign about how macs didn't get viruses, but you are right, since the marketshare was so small it just didn't get these big virus scares like pc did, but they did have malware. When mac users did scan for malware they would tend to find a bunch and that was the end of that marketing campaign.