Anti Virus?

Hi guys. I'm going to share why I stopped using Anti Virus softwares. We recently concluded our PIIC (Philippine Institute of Integrated Circuits) training, and just this afternoon I felt the urge to share to you why I stopped using AV (Antivirus) softwares. Earlier, when they inserted a flashdrive to the PC, the contents were all shortcut files (*.lnk), and I thought I saw the user clicked on it. :O He had quite a struggle restoring the files. I know because it was projected on a projection screen using a projector. Haha.

Okay, so first, where do viruses (mostly) come from? The number one culprit (according to my experiences) are flashdrives. Flashdrives carry CTD's (Computer Transmitted Diseases, lol) since they get inserted into so many PCs. Who knows what kind of malwares (malicious softwares), worms, and other creepy diseases it might have come into contact to? The second cause of viruses are from the internet - downloaded applications. I'm going to share some tips to you to avoid getting viruses and malwares.

Tip 1.

Familiarize yourself with file extensions of your files. For example, executable files has an extension of *.exe or *.msi. Video files have an extension of *.avi, *.flv, *.mp4, *.mkv, and so on and so forth.

Go here and here for a list of file extensions.

To show file extensions, open an explorer (Windows key + 'e', or just open My Computer), click Organize>Folder and Search Options and go to the View tab and uncheck Hide extension for known file types. Now you will be able to see what are the file extensions of your files.

For example, if you are downloading a video from the internet, and the download window shows an extension that is different from what you are downloading, cancel that immediately. It may contain malwares, PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs), or worse, may infect your computer with viruses. Be vigilant.

Tip 2.

If you inserted a flashdrive to your PC and see that all of its contents are shortcut files, (*.lnk) do not click on any of them. I repeat, DO NOT CLICK ANY OF THE ITEMS. If you do, it will open a command window and infect your PC with a virus or a worm.

A closer inspection of the shortcut file gives us this:

This particular example executes the rundll32.exe then an
additional code "tbi,sgo,haymxpakdagbbdhy"

Look closely, it says the file location is somewhere in C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe, which we know is not true since it should be located in its own drive (G:\, H:\)

This simply means that it will open the command window, execute a certain command and infect your precious computer (PC) with viruses.

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You must be very careful with these. Any way, so why did I stop using AV softwares? Simply because they are not doing their job very efficiently. (Well, some AVs are better than others at detecting and cleaning) And because they take up too much of your precious RAM.

Instead, I opted to use separate programs. One program for detecting and disinfecting flashdrives, and another for disinfecting my system, although they can be used either way. In total, they take almost only 15mb of my RAM.

WHAAAT?! ONLY 15mb?

Yes. Now compare that to some AVs. The last AV I used took almost 60mb of my RAM, so that's like 4 times the size of my current set up.

Okay, so my current set up is:

SmadAV for removable devices;

Malwarebytes for malware and pup removable; and

Of course, Windows defender.

These three should be work perfectly well together. However, there are some cases where these might fail to detect an irregularity in your system. This is where Cloud Scanning comes to the rescue. I recently had a problem with my PC wherein I cannot search google using the address bar, it says that my computer is sending too many requests and that's why I wasn't able to search. But fortunately, I can go to google.com and search there. I scanned my PC, using the 3 programs I mentioned, the results were negative. Then I remembered Panda Cloud Cleaner. This software uses cloud computing to scan your computer. It was able to finally fix my problems. It showed some programs and whatnot that I have no Idea it was in my system. Thankfully it was removed successfully. 

Well, That's it for now folks. Cheers for a CTD free PC! ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ