Why's this thread starting back up in stead of a new best AV for 2025?
Should this not have been locked and archived a the end of the year? So the next year goes in a new thread.

Well regardless, it's 2025 and I still agree with ArticStorm.

No AV is best.
Shame it needs to be paired with no internet connection to keep working for a long time.

 

In 2025 - it's still SEP 14.3 on all internet facing machines - NO win updaters. On non internet machines, it's still NO a/v, NO fw and NO win updates. NO problems...NO issues.

 

If people show up at your door – people you don't know or who claim to be someone you're not, let them close the door. The internet is like that, too; above all, don't attach files and be careful with your clicks. The free adwcleaner puts minimal strain on your system, and you can use it when needed. It scans your hard drive and detects malware and viruses.

Viruses, Trojans, ransomware, etc., are first released by criminals, and only then can anti-virus software manufacturers react. Your open PCs will only install protection after being infected with viruses. A software update is then required to update your anti-virus software. As you can see, it's better to have a complete backup of your C:/ drive. This allows you to quickly restore your system 1:1 in the event of a potential infection.

 

Yes, I do that too. But unfortunately you have to have knowledge of the quality of antivirus software. For example the BKAV antivirus flags almost all software on sistesite, so you need to discard this flag. Also the fact that a file is new and maybe not flagged today, doesn't mean it cannot be flagged the day after. The other way around is also possible. Blocker and virustotal.com are tools that can be helpful. The final judgement however needs an educated mind.....

 

You could also put it this way: if you download from the sister site and your Defender, for example, kicks in and warns you, all alerts are false alarms. Therefore, you should deactivate your Defender on the sister site before downloading anything and reactivate it after installation. 100% security doesn't exist, so back up your important files and make full backups of your C:/ drive.

 

He he, one of the reasons why I abandoned windohos 3 years ago in favor of Linux!!

 

A very wise decision on your part. You can live with Windows, too. I simply uninstalled Defender and bought and installed an update blocker. I always have Linux as an alternative in case Windows doesn't work. I even tested it back then. I quote from Wikipedia: "BeOS is an operating system from the former Be Incorporated. Due to its multimedia capabilities, Be also called it "Media OS." However, it failed to establish itself on the market and was discontinued in 2001."

BeOS - The Forgotten ‘90s Operating System (Retrospective & Demo)

 

Today I bought a second hand blueray burner for 5 bucks and burned the the installation files (install.exe foldes etc + keygens) so my defender is not able to sneakily see my files, delete them as the disk can not be rewritten. I know it's not ideal, but at least I can peacefully install stuff without having to turn windows defender off and restart. So far it seems to work

 

I'll repeat my personal trick since time has passed, new blood and stuff. It's a different no-delete approach.
What I do with patchers, keygens and so on is to zip them with a short password, and leave also the original.
It's something you can do easily with WinRar if you add entries to the context menu.

This way when I open my AV (usually closed) and manually scan if it detects something as malware but it's a false positive I can easily restore it. In the case it may be indeed malware I do some more digging, like virustotal stuff

 

My trick is that I uninstalled Defender; since then, everything's been fine.
I have a good backup in case a virus does manage to get onto my hard drive.

 

Right you can even just lock store without compression, much faster.

 

Exactly. But you only need to protect the keygen/patcher, very small so very fast. The main installer, prepatched or not, is unlikely to trigger a false positive. So if I have:

Code:

my_plugin\patcher.exe (small)
my_plugin\installer_of_the_plugin.exe (not small)

I only zip with password the patcher and we have:

Code:

my_plugin\pacher.exe
my_plugin\patcher.exe.rar -> with a trivial password like "123", can't be touched by the antivirus
my_plugin\installer_of_the_plugin.exe

Now even if I scan and patcher.exe gets flagged/deleted I have the .rar copy. And I do see the AV positive, which may be right. Not with stuff downloaded from sister site AZ, but I download from certain "wild" places

If I do the same with the installer (or the whole folder) I do use store without compression like you say.