I'd love for the people minus fragging me so quickly to jump in at anytime and explain to me where I'm wrong. Maybe I'll learn something. :)

Ok, your arguments have gone from bad to outright stupid. I would fire you on the spot after hearing your arguments. You should not be in charge of any desktop support period.

Anti-virus programs BLOCK the attacks, they don't just remove them. Daily definitions are the same as practicing good hygiene if we want to stick with the analogy.

What you're suggesting people do is only go to the doctor after they have been infected, it's too late then. Anti-virus is to protect you from getting the virus in the first place.

Next you're going to tell us vaccines are bad. People get the flu shot to prevent getting the flu, you can't get it after you have the flu.

edit: and you realize the doctor can't give you anything for a virus, right? Antibiotics only fight bacterial infections. So if you're going to go along with my analogies, at least understand them.

I would agree with you if I stepped away from IT for 15 years, but in that time I worked my way up through the levels to the top where I sit now. I design network security solutions for "clients". So when I advice you to secure yourself, I'm not just rambling off stuff from a low level IT position. Nor can I sit idly by while others give bad advice.

And definitions come out daily, where software patches can take days to months to come out. Sometimes vendors will outright refuse to fix exploits because it will cost them more to fix it then to just leave it until the next roll out. Did you not read/watch fight club before? Do you remember what his job was?

I will quote wiki fr you;

For worms, viruses, Trojans and other zero-day malware attacks, the vulnerability window follows this time line:

1. The developer creates software containing an unknown vulnerability.
2. The attacker finds the vulnerability before the developer does (or while the developer is aware of but has neglected or been unable to fix it).
3. The attacker writes an exploit while the vulnerability is either not known to the developer or known but still not closed (e.g., due to an internal assessment of the threat's potential damage costs being lower than the costs of developing a fix), usually also using and distributing it.
4. The developer or the public becomes aware of the exploited vulnerability and the developer is forced to start working on a fix, if still not working on one.
5. The developer releases the fix.

I don't quite follow you. You mention in 15 years they have come up with better ways to attack you, but then you say you no longer use anti-virus. But it's good to know those programs have also come a long way in the last 15 years, and aren't as much of a hassle they used to be.

I love how people are minus fragging me for telling them the truth about their own security. :) I guess no good deeds go un-punished.

TO be fair I did say it was dumb not to have some sort of protection. And I just don't agree with you telling people they don't need it.

If a doctor told people bad medical advice and they had an illness because of that advice, that doctor would get sued. So as a person in IT, you should not be telling people to avoid virus protection. That's just bad advice.

Oh please, we didn't assume anything, your first post was pretty fucking clear that you didn't do anything to protect yourself aside from being careful. Don't turn this around on us making assumptions, lol.

And "Wouldn't be that much of a hit"??? It's not my personal data I'm worried about losing, it's my banking and work info/passwords being stolen as I type them in. We're not talking about doing backups here, we're talking about someone trying to actively access our systems and stealing contact/connection info. Have you ever had your identity stolen before? It's a nightmare to get out of that hole if they run up your credit and start getting loans out in your name.

Getting a virus can be just as out of your control as a car accident. Most of the time the site that's been injected has no idea it's happening. Sure 99% of the time it' user error, but that's not the one I worry about, it's the 1%.

And I really hope you aren't connecting to your work (VPN or not) on a PC that doesn't have virus protection. You, being the IT support person, should be very aware of this. In fact, you shouldn't be letting anyone onto your work network without an active firewall and anti-virus program installed and doing scans every few days at a minimum. And no split tunneling, please.

I did your job over 15 years ago, so there's not much you're going to tell me I don't already know. But I'll continue to bite as long as you keep up the replies.

flippers, multiple people refuted his post and you still respond with that? tisk tisk

Shocka, your first post made it sounds like you did nothing to prevent attacks but then posted in your follow up that use multiple things like ad-blocker and do yearly scans. So some of my post was based off you doing nothing but being careful with which sites you use and not opening random attachments.

Now, I'm sure you're aware updates don't always roll out as soon as an exploit is detected, right? virus signatures will always be way ahead of windows, flash or java updates. It's like being in a car accident, it only takes once. And then when you do your yearly scan and find the threat it's way too late.

You can keep doing what you're doing and maybe never get infected, but it's not a risk I'm going to take at this point in my life. I have way too much to protect. I've seen many long time secure sites get a bad injected ad or simple picture/gif that was infected by a 3rd party so these things do get through. I've seen enough outbreaks with clients to know better and that the damage can be quick.

uh, how do you know you've never had a virus if you don't have a virus scanner? You could have a Trojan or key logger root deep and never know it. I work in network security at a level I can't even talk about and I believe it's dumb to not have any virus protection. Any site can have an infected ad that they don't even know about. A good virus program will have gamer mode that will shut off when you go fullscreen. There's no reason to go around the internet raw.

He played with us in IM when it was actually good, so as long as his DM is back up to par he's a great pickup.

just get the talent or stealth and you'll be happy.

I'd like to advise against the CM storm spawn because the storm support is the worst in the world.

What province are you in? I'll gather up the mice I have sitting around and give you a choice.

If we had a mass move from ESEA to cevo I would personally provide 6 mouse pads to add to the prize pot.

lpkane clearly banned multiple people for 10 years for arguing with him in the thread under the announcement. fzero being one of them.