Poll: How often do you get infections?

Some people say if you run Windows you'll get infected within five minutes of getting on the Internet, less if you aren't running Vista. And almost every computer comes with an anti-virus trial these days. Certainly there are people who manage to acquire incredible amounts of viruses, but is that really the average picture? If you wait an hour to install an anti-virus program after connecting to the Internet, will you have half a dozen viruses?

That certainly wasn't what I'd been noticing in day-to-day usage. Every once in a while there'd be some tracking cookie detected, and I saw a trojan detected once a couple years ago. But I saw nothing of the sort of thing that would indicate viruses were rampant on every single site on the Internet and would invade a Windows computer within minutes.

But I certainly did notice the difference anti-virus software made in performance. So gradually I started running anti-virus software more and more sporadically, occasionally doing a scan, but not always real-time protection. Then, starting in December of this past year, I disabled anti-virus/Windows Defender/etc. altogether. For the past three months I've been surfing the Net (as well as doing a whole bunch of other things) without any security software even installed, except that which comes with Windows, which was disabled.

So this week I installed the free anti-virus my university provides, and ran a full system scan. It turned up two items, both of which I knew to be false positives. No viruses. I ran a full system scan on Windows Defender. Absolutely nothing detected. Both programs had all the latest definitions installed.

Inevitably being infected within minutes? Yeah, right. True, I rarely use IE, and I have common sense about what links I click on. But I wasn't running any security software, wasn't blocking many ads, didn't have UAC or any of Vista's improved security features (running XP instead 90% of the time, and Win7 with UAC off almost all the rest). I had XP up-to-date in December, but haven't updated it since then. And it's not like I browse the Internet for 60 seconds a day, or only browse two sites.

So what about the rest of NBR members? How often do your virus scanners detect viruses, and your spyware detectors detect spyware? Is the Internet really that dangerous if you have some common sense? I end up getting more biological infections than computer ones, and I do a pretty good job of following proper precautions there as well!

Extropolate the data for the poll - I obviously don't expect you to actually have a whole year's worth of data ready. Although if you'd rather collect data for a couple months and vote then, that's just as well.

 

none!! the last time I got a virus was when I was 12 and didn't know what anti-virus software was...

 

This poll is not going to be accurate at all due to some users not having adequate software to actually determine if they have infections. Proper AV, spyware scanners, etc. Some users will not even know if they have infections. So :/
For me though, I probably pick up at least 1 or 2 a year...now that I'm more knowledgeable about system security.

 

I just started running scans every Friday. MBAM usually detects nothing, SAS always finds tracking cookies, Avira finds 1 small problem, and today Avast said the pagefile on my Inspiron 9100 running Windows 7 was infected.

 

I have yet to get a virus in either XP or Vista and I run Avira. I also run Spybot and Malwarebytes and all is quiet as well.

 

I get an occasional virus every few months, but that's because I plugged in my friend's thumbdrive which had a virus in it!

 

I get on average one infection per year. But I remember one time (a long time ago) I had just reformatted and installed XP Home on a Dell desktop and the first thing I did when I connected to the internet was run Windows Update (it was using IE6 for that) and I got infected in that instant. Bad luck I suppose but in my experience I got a lot more infections using XP than Vista and I'm a pretty safe user.

 

True. And other users will think they're infected because some program flagged something, but it was either a false positive or something like a browser cookie that's not really malware.

 

None, I use a Mac.

 

I got one in the last 8 months...got it taken care of...a quick and swift eradication!


Cin

 

zero (counting since i got my first own computer & learned how to use security sw... and how to behave). i simply won't give them a chance

 

when you download from the internet than only the viruses comes into the computer .

viruses comes with the internet downloaded files and attacked the computer files and corrupt the internet files.

 

I can't even remember the last time any of my anti-virus/spyware/malware scanners picked up anything other than tracking cookies that weren't false positives.

 

not really. internet is one of the sources, but not the only one of course. many worms spread in local networks, too (the computers don't need to have internet access). many also create an infected autorun file on removable media (usb sticks), which is another (and quite frequent) way of infection. add also infected backups.

and, illegal software & cracks. but these are a different chapter

 

no infection since years. and no vire scanner since one year.

 

Last year I had an infection which NOD32 was not able to detect, I noticed it because of a strange internet traffic and removed it manually.

This year I also had an infection which NOD32 removed successfully, whereas I have no idea where this last infaction came from, because I wasn't connected to the internet and the virus notification appeared in the middle of a lecture while taking notes.

Last year my mother also opened accidentally a spam mail attachment on her notebook which contained a virus. Even with NOD32 running the system was broken and we had to run Norton Ghost to load a saved image of the system.

 

I've only had two infections in the last two years. That is only on my personal PC, not the work ones. They on average get 2-3 per year which isn't too bad with 20+ users abusing the machines.

 

0! Nod32 Ftw

 

trojan killed my 3 months old XPS while i was uninstalling Mc'fee n replacing it with AVG while machine was still jacked in.. trust me..it wudnt have taken more than few minutes n my machine went on a loop,restarting n all sort of thing.. had to run recovery disc..a new/fresh installation.. been over 6 months..havent got ny since that day.

oh..btw my desktop was screwed cos of this antivirus2009..i had to format cos it went super slow n you do anything..a window would keep popping every other second..

oh yeah.. sticks r big threat when it comes to transport trojans(or any other infections)..

n havent been to any p-orn sites in ages..so no threat wt so ever... lOl

 

I know you have to be a little crazy to run a Windows machine without anti-virus software, but most people seem to have more problems running anti-virus software than they ever do from viruses!

I voted 0. Let's hope I didn't tempt fate!!

 

I dont even run a virus scanner anymore.

 

None in the last few years since I have been using Vista. Got a few in XP years ago when I disabled my Anti Virus software to get a keygen to work.

 

I have had anti-virus and a firewall app enabled and haven't gotten anything more than the usual tracking cookies in nightly scans. I also went the extra step in turning on encryption on the 'My Documents' folder just incase a breach has occurred. Am I overtly paranoid? Hell yeah. I have important stuff on my machine so it's imperative that it stays healthy and out of harms way.

Quick side-note, I'm running Vista and I view it as incredibly more secure than XP is. Granted, the UAC is kind of annoying but I'm glad it's there to protect me from myself.

 

Nothing here for 3 year in a row! And I don't even have an Anti-virus anymore.

 

A real virus.....probably years ago.
Flash autorun is an ongoing problem though.

Had a strange problem with Avira Free a while back. A "drive by" maybe?

Anyways, ALT+F10 on an Acer brings all back to normal.

Saved stuff is on "D" partition and safe and Virus free.

Cheers