Best Antivirus?

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[codec_spurt]

The amount of virii ......

The root word is from Greek not Latin.

Ah ok. Thanks. I usually say 'viruses', but sometimes on a whim, thinking it's not important....


Still don't understand what you mean though.

You say 'The root word'. The 'root word' of what exactly? You don't elucidate.

I suppose I could reverse engineer your terse statement.
As in: 'Me Man You Boy', for want of a better example.

In fact, after going to all the trouble to correct and educate me, if you had only included say, one or two more words, it would have made perfect sense.

i.e. 'The root word OF VIRII is from Greek not Latin'. Or somesuch. Still doesn't make sense. I could spend hours on this getting to the bottom of it.

And even if I should figure out what this mysterious 'root word' you allude to, is, I fear I should be none the wiser of the greater concept you are trying to convey. So what, if that, PARTICULAR, root word, IS indeed from Greek and not from Latin? What are you trying to say? How would that matter? What is the context here? Is it just a blind statement? Surely not. Only a madman would wander around the place shouting 'The leaves are Green, not Red'. He'd be locked up in no time. Well I would certainly cross the street to avoid the fellow anyway.

I know I have got something very, terribly wrong here. But I'm afraid you aren't doing much to help my further understanding.

But, if you would care to spell it out for a poor old ingnoramus such as myself, I would be eternally grateful.

[Frantz]

Still obsessing on this? He wanted to say the correct plural in English is viruses, not virii. However, the word is of Latin origin so he screwed up the reasoning.

Wikipedia has more info:

The English plural of virus is viruses.[1] In most speaking communities this is non-controversial and speakers would not attempt to use the non-standard plural in -i. However, in computer enthusiast circles in the late 20th century and early 21st, the non-standard viri form (sometimes even virii) was well-attested, generally in the context of computer viruses.[2]

While the number of users employing these non-standard plural forms of virus was always a proportionally small percentage of the English-speaking population, the variation was notable because it coincided with the growth of the Internet, a medium on which users of viri were over-represented. As the distribution of Internet users shifted to be more representative of the population as a whole during the 2000s, the non-standard forms saw decline in usage. A tendency towards prescriptivism in the computer enthusiast community, combined with the growing awareness that viri and virii are not etymologically supported plural forms, also played a part.[citation needed]

Nonetheless, the question of what the Latin plural of virus would have been turns out not to be straightforward, as no plural form is attested in extant Latin literature. Furthermore, its unusual status as a neuter noun ending in -us apparently not of Greek origin obscures its morphology, making guesses about how it should have been declined difficult.

[codec_spurt]

I'll probably regret this, and I don't really want an argument, but in case it isn't some obvious, there's some real misinformation in this thread. Only reason I'm posting is to say please don't ditch your a/v for EMET, thinking it protects you from zero day exploits, works on a lower level than a/v, replaces a/v, does the same job as a/v or is appropriate for your average home pc, because none of those are true. If you read the EMET docco on technet, and you're not sure what it means, you're not the target audience. It's not an alternative to running a/v, it really, genuinely isn't. Run both, if you're curious, of course.

No, arguments are good. Within reason.

Accusing someone of spreading misinformation though, I think is deserving of some defense. I take it that it was leveled at me seeing as no one else has put EMET forward as any kind of solution?


You say that it doesn't protect against zero day exploits. You say that this is simply not true. Wrong. It does protect against zero day exploits and Anti-virus doesn't.

You say it does not work on a lower level than an anti-virus. Wrong. It does. It works at the same level of a virus. If we can agree that most AV uses signatures, which are comprised of lines of code to be pattern matched and recognised and flagged. EMET works at the instruction set level of the CPU, the very same areas that a Virus would target. AV is quite simply a lot more high level in it's execution and scope on this scale.

Anti-Virus is there to recognize and stop the code from being executed in the first place. EMET is for stopping the code from executing AS IT IS BEING EXECUTED. Don't get much more anti zero day than that.


Ring 0?

-----------------------
It's a known fact that EMET uses hardware debug registers to intercept instructions
--------------------------

https://badishi.com/tweaking-metasploit ... et-part-1/


-------------------------
direct access to the debug registers is restricted to ring 0 code, and most exploits never go past user-land.
----------------------------

Microsoft can do this, because they have the knowledge. They are in bed with intel and they have access to undocumented operations on chip. Do you not think that they ever so slightly exploit this? Do you not think that even the best virus writer is clutching at straws, gleaning what he can through reverse engineering and other highly time intensive means?

It's not a fair fight. At least with the gloves on. When the gloves come off of course it is another matter.


You say it does not replace AV. I never said it did. I said it was a compliment. Please get your facts right first of what I am saying if this was leveled at me. I also mentioned that I run AV on top, to be sure.


You say it is not appropriate for your home average PC. Correct. I never said it was. I believe I said it was quite dangerous in fact to set up, or it could be. I warned to back up your system before playing about with it.


You say it is not an alternative to running AV. Wrong. It is. Whether that is a good judgement call or not is another matter. But it is an alternative used by security experts that really know what they are doing.

I will quote one more time, Ad nauseam, the names of Dedoimedo and Rationallyparanoid.


I never said to abandon AV and that EMET was a panacea. I merely posited it as an alternative. The reason being lots of audio software does not work with AV - Studio One for example must have it switched off. And many others it degrades performance. So I would imagine it would be of interest on an audio forum.

I run both. In fact as I have mentioned on several occasions, I have 5 or 6 AVs on my system. Some in real time sometimes, some on demand. That is nothing to do with the other 4 or 5 levels of security I have, that we have not even begun to ARGUE about yet.




Anyway, you called me out. I responded with a bit more than unqualified statements. I took each of your slights and argued them. There's some real ammo in this post to hoist me up, if you can.

Do your damnedest my good man.


EMET is definitely more powerful on Windows 7. I understand the ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomisation) doesn't work on WinXP. But that is just one facet of EMET. Microsoft and Intel worked in partnership when not just designing the OS but when designing the chips that the OS would run on, to implement this. And you accuse me of spreading disinformation for saying that this is merely an alternative way of doing things?


I appreciate a good troll as much as the next man, but really, sir, you have overstepped the boundaries of decency here.


I just wanted my objection to be heard.



(Anyway, I hope it helped with your homework)

[codec_spurt]

Still obsessing on this?

Obsessing?

Obsessing?

I visit a thread I have not visited in weeks. I see a cheeky comment and make a pithy remark, and I am obsessing?

You, however, have taken the time. Made the mistake. No one cares.




Yeah, actually I got it. I got it first time round.

In fact, I actually used the word as a trap. Because it is quite a commonly held misapprehension that the plural of 'virus' is in fact 'virii' and those that say 'viruses' are pitifully wrong. Where as, as you so rightly point out, they are perfectly correct. However, if I had said 'viruses', this being KVR, I would have still been pounced on with people correcting my style (note, not substance) and saying: 'It is "Virii"'.

All in all it has turned out rather well. Especially as the chap who accused me of spreading misinformation is the very same chap that has been proven to be wrong in his correcting of me in my use of the English language. The gall!

I should imagine the rotter has his tail well and truly between his legs and will be well on his way to finding a hidey hole to lick his recently gotten wounds. I for one, shall be watching this thread VERY intently from now on, should my honour ever come into question again.

Not that I'm obsessed or anything, like.

[Frantz]

Yeah, actually I got it. I got it first time round.

In fact, I actually used the word as a trap.

So this thread is your spider web. Anyone who innocently lands here and comments is killed and consumed by you. I will fly out before it is too late.

[standalone]

Callus > Callii

Asparagus > Asparagii


THAT is correct English.

[Spiritos]

You like potato and I like potahto, you like tomato and I like tomahto..

You know language is like, ya know, really my thing

[fateamenabletochange]

In fact, I actually used the word as a trap. Because it is quite a commonly held misapprehension that the plural of 'virus' is in fact 'virii' and those that say 'viruses' are pitifully wrong.

So you used the generally thought [pitifully] wrong form of the word in order to teach people the right form. ??

Doesn't sound very plausible.

[krl8301]

Bitdefender Internet Security 2013 is a great

[DuX]

In my book, all antivirus programs are the same as VIRUSES. I can bet some antivirus companies even invent VIRUSES just because they'd go out of business without them being around. However, there are enough demented people around who like to wreck havoc on people's computers just because they can, so it is all relative...

I still recommend Ghost or DriveImageXML, though. It's the best protection you can get, ever invented. I've come across so many OSes infected by viruses despite having antivirus "protection". It is just useless and so resource consuming, and they f**k up your OSes anyway, whatever you use for protection. I really think it's just completely stupid having an antivirus protection on your computer. Just make regular or occasional backups of your system partition. Of course, it's easy to say that when I'm using Windows XP, since it is small... especially DuXP. LOL That's why I made it small, so you can make regular backups. My backups are just few hundred MBs! OK, it's more than 600, but it fits nicely onto a regular old-fashioned CD. And that's the one of the main purposes of having a cut down OS, so you can back it up easily, but it also works as fast as hell.

Well, to each their own. Most of the people have no clue about what an OS is all about, so an antivirus can help them to understand that. I mean help them to understand at least what kind of files could be harmful for their computer. What stumps me the most is that most of the infections I've seen come from the user himself clicking something wrong while browsing. If you get a virus, you're just not really computer proficient in the most cases, and that's all. Know what you're doing and you won't need an antivirus.

Or use a VirtualBox for browsing. https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads You can get VIRUSES with this and just forget about it.

p.s. I don't care if it's VIRUSES or VIRII because it doesn't matter. It's just a word. I've been into computing since the late 80s and I know about the "Virii" but the people don't know what it is, so I'd rather use the word that people understand.

[Spiritos]

Funny how topics can drift from technical issues to linguistics and latin plurals.

Did any of you know that 'anus' is actually latin for 'old woman'?
Now visualise that....

On topic: In my opinion deepfreeze seems to be the only fail-safe solution for viruses.

[seismic1]

I can bet some antivirus companies even invent VIRUSES just because they'd go out of business without them being around.

I have suspected that this might be the case for 22 years

[DuX]

Did any of you know that 'anus' is actually latin for 'old woman'?
Now visualise that....

LOL! I didn't. You learn something new every day.

[Tricky-Loops]

Some things are really more clear in German.

The (German) plural of virus is "viren", so we don't have to rack our brains...