[lmr]

Call me a renegade, but in my experience, Virus protection significantly hinders performance. I don’t use it. I disable UAC, as well. The only thing I have running is a firewall.

Somehow, I avoid infections... Including all the Spyware crap that I run scans for periodically. This stuff is more predominant, peskier and treacherous than viruses in my opinion, anyway.

My secret? Clean living, I guess.

[Sarah Barracuda]

I use Avast antivirus, never had any issues..great piece of software, and its free..I also use Spybot search and destroy, another great piece of free software. For Windows 7, the UAC is used sometimes, I have it for occasional use. Windows Vista was just a pain in the ass for me, so I decided to upgrade. Everything works fine, except my memory card reader that is in the computer no longer shows up. I guess it is not compatible. I have a Dell Inspiron 518 Desktop..so I hope in a few weeks there will be a fix for that

[This_far]

But let's not get complacent.

I'm still running 98SE (free AVAST, Tiny Firewall). I may not be as 'clean living' as you, perhaps it's my dial up, but I'm virus free. (I do have a ready set of XP PRO 64 disks on the shelf)

I've become even more adverse to CHANGE recently. /s

[RayChuang88]

I run Norton Internet Security 2010 and never experience any performance issues in Windows Vista Home Premium (SP2). Must be the fact I have a dual-core CPU in my system.

[VeniVidiVici]

My secret? Clean living, I guess.

The fact is the majority of it comes from searching for porn. If not your machine then Aunt Silvie's when she sends you a nude pic of Alyson Hannigan.

[rarestia]

You’re no renegade! You’re a common-sense thinking person. PCs are not like TVs. They have life and, unlike our Constitution, they are living entities subject to changes from even being connected to the Internet. I too live without virus scanners or UAC. I have a robust firewall rules list, and I regularly update my hosts file to ensure that the latest group of malware, spyware, and virus-producing sites go to a harmless 127.0.0.1.

Staying off of social networking sites, porn sites, using a browser OTHER than IE, deleting chain emails and those from who you don’t know, and changing the default settings on most security applications will keep you clean and safe.

Now don’t be completely fooled; I still run MalwareBytes and CCleaner on occasion. While I’m confident the viruses stay out, I still believe that external forces can muck up my machine without my knowledge. Preventative habits keep you safe but proactive scanning and knowledge of your system’s behavior when stable can help you to determine if that latest RSS reader or $1 bin video game was really a good download.

[Big Giant Head]

Call me a renegade, but in my experience, Virus protection significantly hinders performance. I don’t use it. I disable UAC, as well. The only thing I have running is a firewall.

Hey! You and me ought to start a club or something. Firewall only here too. Sneaking up on two years of this setup. No infections, no malware, no nuttin'.

[rabscuttle385]

Call me a renegade, but in my experience, Virus protection significantly hinders performance.

Then use a light-weight anti-virus package like Eset's Nod32.

[MaxMax]

Same here, no virus programs but I use two firewalls, one software and one hardware.