You're right.  That was a huge exaggeration.  Sorry.  But I still plan to stick with none vs. any.

And, BTW, you guys are taking my fanboy support a little too seriously.  Sorry that my sarcasm is a huge fail via the inter web.

Quote from: shipsupt on January 04, 2013, 09:00:42 PM

Sorry, I must have misinterpreted the part where he said he runs a scan of Malwarebytes weekly.

I do (although I don't bother with NoScript). It takes 30 minutes and doesn't require my presence. I'd say it falls short of "wayyyy" too much work by several orders of magnitude.

I ran a minimal Ubuntu built up with XFCE for a while. Running a minimal distro really made me appreciate all of the things the packaged OSes do for you.  I never saw a computer shut down faster when I said Shut Down from the OS, though.

Xubuntu is pretty bare bones. That's why I suggested the Mint version, because they modify the menu to make it more "XP"-like[mintMenu], in addition to including a  -load of packages (read included many programs and most codecs for media files) while still retaining the speed and graphical simplicity.

As for the question at hand, I'd personally suggest a low-profile AV like Microsoft Security Essentials. They did technically not get a certification from the last round of testing, but in all honesty your AV shouldn't really be kicking in all that often if you're browsing safely.

agreed. If I had to use windows, MSE with spybot S&D is all you really need... (maybe a better firewall too, but browsers these days do a good job of site monitoring)

For a browser, if your computer has 4GB or more of RAM, I suggest getting Google Chrome. Chrome chews through an incredible amount of memory, but it really is the best browser right now by the benchmarks.

[rant]
but how usable is chrome? I switched to opera and have never gone back. the customization is better than firefox! I could go on about reasons not the use chrome(chromium is ok), but I think I'll just link to this page: Opera Features... [/rant]

An opera User indeed! 

...[chromium and chrome] are pretty much the same, minus the proprietary parts like the PDF Reader or Pepper Flash.

Chromium does have the pdf reader. I don't find it useful... [too limited]
Also, chromium can still tap into chromeSync and other google features. The only three main differences are the chrome auto-updater, more extensive bug testing done by google, and proprietary tracking/data collection modules in chrome. (plus the color scheme)
Chromium lacks these three things.

I'm sure Chrome is fast, and I do not deny it in the slightest, but at what cost? Even performance optimized versions of chromium use too much resources and cannot handle large numbers of tabs without having page crashes and memory dumps. Now, this does not make chrome terrible, per se, because the heavy usage is part of how the browser was designed. (each tab is in an individual sandbox + chrome is comprised of two pieces: the interface and the actual WebKit-based page manager)

What I don't like is the apple like control Google (and by extension, the Google employees who manage Chromium) exerts over how one can and may use their browser. Opera and Firefox let me use any external application I want in conjunction, and opera in particular allows for every part of the browser to be enabled or disabled... don't ever use tabs, and prefer to use Mission Control in OSX instead? *poof* gone... Need granular cookie filtering options? it's there... dislike the standard button layout? simply go into the appearance menu and start dragging.

Anyways, the benchmarks are a moot point on a slow connection, because Opera has Turbo --> link

What have I missed since the mid-90s?  I remember doing defrags & having an antivirus software back then.  What do PC users do regularly now and what kind of security suites do you run and/or recommend?

Replace HD with SSD. More reliable and no more defrags. In fact, you don't want to defrag at all (Windows should prevent regular defrags with SSD installed).

AV:Something with *sky or is from Russia or Eastern Europe. These products have been consistently better over the years. AV products lend to leap frog each with every iteration. I was using ESET, but now I'm using AVG free edition. Norton and McAfee tend to be too bloated, but they've gotten better.


P.S. Yeah, I use Opera (have been doing so for almost 10 years now) and Chrome.