antivirus programs

austinjenna wrote:

First off I never called you any names,

Agreed, you have not called me any names. Why do I take this so personally? In my own posts I'm careful to separate fact from opinion, and rarely try to tell others what to do. All I posted originally was that I've been virus free for 4 years without using antivirus software, and "The best windows anti-virus protection IMO is never running in administrator mode unless absolutely necessary". For stating one fact and one opinion, the statement "if you are not running an anti virus program you are an idiot" is what set me off. My OPINION is that staying out of administrator mode and using common sense about what links to not click on and what email attachments to not open reduces the risk of virus to the point that the damage the antivirus programs do to your system is worse than the virus risk. There are a lot more details to it, and I'm not out to write a book. I just wanted to say enough to point out that even though I think a lot of users are running inefficient bloated anti-virus packages that seriously impacts their system performance while still letting some of the viruses through, I'm not appointing myself to judge their motives or intelligence. I think the best thing for anybody is to do what works the best for them.