In all seriousness though, listen to cron here. Everything is spot on:
I manage a network of about 450 PCs and I will tell you that it's absolutely CRUCIAL that you have the latest Java and Flash updates as that is where the majority of crap comes from. Microsoft Security Essentials/Windows Defender/System Center Endpoint Protection (all the same thing basically) are the most efficient IMO. Low CPU usage, not annoying as hell like some others and they catch mostly everything. Occasionally, if they do miss something, Malwarebytes does a good job of catching it and if that's still not enough, Spybot Search & Destroy gets the rest. If not, usually you're gonna need to reimage the PC anyway in which case you should have a good backup in place.cron wrote:I just use Windows Defender which comes as part of Windows 8. It's a completely different program to the one in earlier versions of Windows. I believe it's essentially MSE on Windows 8.
Other than that, keeping Flash and Java up to date are the single most important things you can do on an internet connected PC to my mind. Every virus/virus warning I've had has come from a compromised ad-server while I've been using an outdated version of Flash, as far as I recall. Chrome automatically keeps it up to date which is handy, and I'm considering ditching Java altogether because it's so rarely used.
As all my bad luck has come from dodgy Flash ads, I consider Ad-Block an essential too. It's a shame to deprive a lot of sites of their income in that department, but the number of ads using Flash represents too great a security risk (let alone the insane CPU hit a lot of Flash ads expect me to stomach).
