Do you utilize a dedicated AV like Bitdefender when sailing? Or do you still trust Windows Defender to take care of the higher risk while doing this?

I’ve been solely trusting windows defender for years now. Honestly, the main way I prevent myself from getting compromised is by sticking to trusted sources whenever possible. If the torrent is provided by someone who’s only ever uploaded one thing, there’s no way in hell I’m trusting it. Beyond that, it’s a balancing act.

People (rightly) shit on Windows but Defender, despite constantly flagging my windows activator as malware, is the best antivirus that’s ever happened. If that fails (occasionally I have a family member who needs help) the amazing Malwarebytes takes care of it with one scan.

If that fails, whatever—reformat. Reformat never fails hahaha.

I haven’t got a virus once in my life, and I’m old. But like you, I stick to trusted sources. Even back on Kazaa, I made sure I’m not running an exe or bat and I was totally fine. The worst thing that happened to me was fucking with the mean clock in AOHELL TOOLZ too much and it put like a thousand text files title FUCK YOU in windows folder, circa windows XP. Luckily deleted them before my dad found out. Took FOREVER with a 400MHz Celeron.

At least it didn’t infect me with CIH, like it threatened (it told me the previous clock did that if you clicked it too much.)
- Just FYI, these days even a format can fail. Some things manage to get into your actual bios, or infect your drive firmware.
  
  Extremely rare, but still very much possible.

Not using Windows kinda solves this problem. It also solves many other problems lol

Including the problem of having too many games to choose from 😉
- 1996 wants its hot take back
- I have about 900 games not counting emulation.
- My philosphy is that if the game doesn't run on Linux, it isn't worth playing, because most games do work, and the ones that don't, are usually because the Anti-Virus the game uses. Which in EAC case, to enable playing on linux is just a button click (iirc).
- Lol, you're not wrong. There will always be idiots trying to gaslight here, though.
  
  It's not evil to eat meat - - erm, I mean... Use windows! I don't even fucking like windows, but like... Yeah, I like to game and that's the easiest platform to game on.

I upload any suspicious files to virustotal.com.

I don’t (generally) sail the high seas, but I’m surprised that people don’t use SysInternals tooling on windows. Of note:

ProcExp - A way better process explorer and has a built-in VirusTotal scanner for all running processes. 100 times better than standard process explorer. This in combination with windows defender is nearly always enough.
AutoRuns - A tool to see what automatically runs on your system. Included image hijacks and such. This is for handling potential post-infection scenarios.

I set my VPN to Russia. Russian viruses are known to not infect their homeland, by design. They promised they wouldn’t, so you know it’s good. I then run the program, and sometimes my CPU starts heating up and slowing down my computer a bit. It happens anytime I turn on my computer now that I think about it. Computer is always running slow. I guess that’s the CPU checking if the viruses are Russian and then rejecting their requests. I can verify this because when I open Task Manager, I don’t see anything showing high CPU usage. It’s probably my imagination since the thing is doing what it’s supposed to be doing and stopping the viruses.

Only downside is I occasionally get a random command prompt pop up that disappears immediately before I can read it. Plus, my identity has been stolen several times and I’ve had to get ahold of Macrosoft Support (they built Windows so I trust them) and buy their premium $500 virus total scam defender package that I pay for monthly, but I don’t think those are related.

This is the way.

AKA don't be this guy.

Don't trust executables on your computer. A Windows VM in a Linux host that you revert to a prior snapshot of you're really curious.

I trust that windows viruses won't work on Linux. Plus I don't pirate software, unless I can crack it myself using binaries provided by the software. I just see pirating software as supporting a company I hate instead of supporting an open source project I like

I just see pirating software as supporting a company I hate instead of supporting an open source project I like

Yes!

Adobe owes a huge part of their success to piracy. It made it impossible for smaller companies to get a foothold back in the 90s because everyone just pirated Photoshop. It never would have become so entrenched (or grown so exploitative in licensing) if people had instead used cheaper/free alternatives.
Yep, as always, spinning up a vm of Linux is just so easy and plenty of ways to recover from a bad moment with snapshots and zfs, or easily restart from a fresh premade image. Also, since you can run the vpn on the host, you can make the vpn connection not have to be limited by the vm performance/limited resources and you don't need to worry of there being a leak of information to the internet about your system or any identifiable info.

…do you still trust Windows…

lol, not since 2004, and I’ve never looked back!

Q: How do you know that you don't have a virus without AV?

A: How do you know that you don't have a virus WITH AV?

Sometimes AVs are literally viruses.

I use linux. But yeah, windows defender is fine. Do rgular scans with it, keep it updated and you should be fine.

I don't even have antivirus on my computer. I almost exclusively use private trackers and download music/shows/movies.

My current solution to prevent getting a virus is to:

Go to archlinux.org
Download the ISO and follow the install instructions
Check suspicious-looking files on virustotal

Takes a few hours to initially set everything up, but has the added benefit of not using a shit operating system.

Windows Defender has been really good. I haven’t had a 3rd party AV installed for nearly 10 years.

I sandbox stuff, using firejail or VM’s. coming from a cybersecurity perspective, AV’s are ok but they also aren’t stoping 0-days or malware that has been coded well by a good hacker.

Defender is sufficient when using common sense and being rightfully suspicious.
My toolbox also contains virustotal for suspicious executables/files.

If you actually want good protection, you'd need tiowatch at a solution that has behavior real time analysis. But that would also interfere with a lot of programs if they employ weird/shady programming (like trainers, mod menus etc.)

No and no. ~~I use arch btw~~

Oh good, we all got together and we all wanted to ask you which Linux distro you preferred.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE.
- It's essentially an obligation or responsibility at this point. I don't actually use arch though. I use a ublue based something image immutable whatever doodad Thinkpad with mods blah cocaine coreboot.
  
  Anyways sail the seas on the penguin, don't worry about viruses. Within reason though as some configurations can allow windows software to fuck you up.

I pirate on Linux and don't use that device for anything else. And I don't pirate software or games where you are installing stuff.

Format c:/

I sail naked AF.

Balls to the wind my friend o7

The best antivirus is common sense. Use trusted sources, read comments, take regular backups, and use a dedicated server instead of your everyday driver. You can rely on Windows Defender or run another OS like Linux or even MacOS.

If you must download a suspicious file, check out sandbox options like Windows Sandbox.

I use Windows defender, MBAM, and Rkill.

Haven't had any issues yet, but I also choose my moorings well.

I remember seeing a comparison between defenders and windows defender was on top. I see no reason to pay because of this. Either way I clean boot my pc every 4 months to keep it running very smooth.

If I download a file from a questionable source: scan it (with clamscan) If I run an executable I don't trust: use a locked-down (with firejail)

No matter the antivirus, if you keep downloading and running questionable files, you run the risk of viruses. I would say that browsing patterns are more important than any antivirus.

I use ESET NOD32. Such a reliable, low resource, and professional interface. Never had a problem

Pretty sure Windows Defender is fine now and not markedly worse than something like Bitdefender. I gave up on Bitdefender when they ended the free version with no advance warning shrug-outta-hecks

Windows Defender is fine. The only anti-virus good enough at what it does to be worth buying instead of just using WD is Emisisoft, and that has its own set of issues.

I still end up using programs/services such as malwarebytes and virustotal on my desktop since defender isn't perfect. I have had a few instances where a game that I download outside of places like Steam had files that are actually clean and safe given false positives. Same with any key gens I've used.

With malwarebytes and virustotal, I've had less false positives in legally obtained games I know are clean. Moreso with malwarebytes since there's seemingly almost always one engine on VT saying the file is bad regardless of what it is.

I always find that having a 3rd party check a file is better than just having defender do all the work. What one engine might claim is bad might be safe to another.

I do use BitDefender. It's free and reputable (last time I checked)

I switched back to Windows recently. Windows defender is really good, but I also use ClamAV when I need a deep scan offline that reports with a log. I only need it when I connect other people's USB drives to my computer, though. Windows Defender catches things really well and doesn't interfere with software installation, just like ClamAV. I'd say if you are looking for something free and advanced, ClamAV is what you need if you need to scan something. I hate Windows Defender's offline deep scan because it does not produce a log you can access. ClamAV does this.

I don't trust Windows Defender at all. I use BitchDefender all of the time. I tried Windows Defender for a year and it didn't fill me with confidence.

I also upload to virus total anything from an unknown source. I tried to use Intezer as well but I had many problems with my account that I have up on them. For some reason their server didn't like my account. A brand new account got closed the following day for being inactive for too long. A week later I can reset the password but I can't log in.