Why Havn't I Ever Gotten A Virus, Nothing. My death wish, I know it.

[barnes 0]

So, my computers about 4 years old. I never really felt the need to install firewalls, virus scans, any of that none snese. In that 4 years, I have used Limewire, Bitcomet, Azuers, Bearshare, and all those other P2P's know for spyware, but I havn't gotten any. I don't have a firewall, I don't really have much protecting me.

 

I belive IE is the bridge that lets spyware installed with Bearshare, to activate. For some reason all my friends download Limewire, and then say they're computer went to hell. This dosn't make sense because I have installed it multiple times when I restored, and never once did that happen.

 

I'm reaching my 6 month mark since my last reformat and I am getting a bit cramped. Its not viruses, its not spyware, just a larege handful of junk I installed but can't find any more.

 

I attribute my good security (or luck.) to these programs.

Firefox.

WinRAR.

Firefox is just brillant and a virtual shield agisnt spyware. WinRAR is the same, just for downloads. I've gotten a pop up from WinRAR saying "Warning, malicious file." and won't let me open it.

 

Does anyone have my luck as well?

[dazappa 0]

Well I would say the same with firefox. I have winrar, but I only use it to open rars. As far as I'm concerned that's all it should do. Firefox is great with stuff like that, and blocks up popups automatically. I would say you are probably just really lucky or have an antivirus program running in the background you didn't know about or you forgot about. I had my computer on the internet a month and I had about 20 viruses and a lot of spyware etc. Or maybe you have a router that has a firewall installed, but I don't think routers have antivirus things.

[Saint_Michael 3]

I would hae to say luck, but i bet if you install a anti virus program now your computer is loaded, you may not see cause its behind the scense kind of stuff. So I would check it to make sure.

[rejected 0]

I do the same exact thing. I have no AV installed (which isn't advised), but I still manage to get no viruses. I use firefox, which prevents a lot of malware, but I'm also careful of what programs I open.

[gameratheart 0]

I would hae to say luck, but i bet if you install a anti virus program now your computer is loaded, you may not see cause its behind the scense kind of stuff. So I would check it to make sure.

Saint is right. I once had no idea how a person could get Adware, Spyware and Malware so easily by browsing the web, that I was convinced I didn't have any. Even more so because I never saw anthing strange happening. But then I downloaded Ad-Aware and found out I had a whole 250 different instances of them.

After that, I downloaded a virus checker too. I've been lucky enough not to have a virus yet, but I know when to be suspicious. Always make sure you know what is going on behind the scenes - it's not always as obvious as you think!

P.S. Don't be glad that you haven't been infected yet. Just be careful. Otherwise, it's your computer's funeral.
_____________________
If something makes you suspicious, you should be.
Edited June 1, 2006 by NDPA (see edit history)

[grnjd 0]

I used internet explorer and I sometimes still do, however firefox does not stop all the popups and spyware/adware. I mean viruses are rare, I never got one until like 6 years ago. But once the virus invades your computer, its really hard to take it out. It can wipe out all your data and even damage your hardware. Thats why its better to be cautious then sorry

[Hamtaro 0]

I went for a while without any type of spyware/adware/virus scanner on my system, and once I finally installed a spyware and adware scanner, it found a TON. I didn't even realize they were on there. They didn't cause any sort of performance loss, so I couldn't tell they were on there. It found over 100. I haven't gotten any viruses yet, thankfully (however, I am now no longer using Windows). I would probably bet that it's just luck. However, that's only IF you don't have any. I would actually get something for it, you never really know what will happen to it in the future.

[brandice 0]

It's a good idea to run a scan, or to look around and see what you actually have on your computer.It's possible to have viruses and stuff and not even know about them though. Things were going super slow on my computer a while back and I ran a scan. Somehow, we got this thing on our computer that was just constantly downloading files from Kazaa. The "My Downloads" folder had almost 7gb of stuff in it that nobody would have ever downloaded. I didn't know we had kazaa... one of the downsides of sharing a computer.

[Magic1492 0]

I use Firefox and Opera. I'm pretty sure Opera was tested to be the most secure, but not compatible with all websites, so I stick with Firefox mostly. I also use WinRAR, so I can't get viruses from archives (Well, not that easily ), the only other main virus vulnurability is P2P software, which I don't use. And yet I still get viruses.

[Paul 0]

There are TWo possible answers:1) You just never realized it (viruses dont want to be known!)2) You're just smart enough to not visit 'bad' sites and to be very careful about the files you download!And, WinRAR is not a very good protection again Malware/Spyware and software of that sort, same with FF. Everything has its vulnerabilities!

[dark_drgn 0]

I agree, most viruses won't go show themselves on your computer that easily, if you installed some antivirus software i bet your computer would be loaded.

[Dooga 0]

The safest way to prevent viruses is not going to sites that you don't trust, like a crack/warez site, porn site, or hacking sites (AKA, illegal or "under the table" sites).

[matto 0]

As far as limewire goes, it's virtually safe as long as you're not stupid when opening files. If you're using WMP, and it asks you to download an update when you're only viewing this one file you got on limewire, for instance, you would not want to do it. As long as you're not retarded you can use it without getting any virii.

[midnitesun 0]

if you want a virus and you dont have active x installed , go to emp3world.com and it'll ask you to install it in order to view the page properly you may get a nice body onload trojan , well i have mcafee instaaled and running and i got that virus as gift two times when i was hunting for mp3's in that site

[Jimmy 0]

if you want a virus and you dont have active x installed , go to emp3world.com and it'll ask you to install it in order to view the page properly you may get a nice body onload trojan , well i have mcafee instaaled and running and i got that virus as gift two times when i was hunting for mp3's in that site

WOW thanks - I feel enlightened already... I have only ever had two viruses and they were at the same time... I got them off a CD - it was a properly bought 'rayman' CD. I couldn't believe it! it stumped me because then every copy made in that same batch would have a virus... Norton detected it (love norton by the way - stopped me downloading 2 viruses from Morpheus, but you can avoid em mostly by just being sensible - I mean... cmon... is something really oging to be "Age of empires 5000 Never before released, the best version known to man, 100kb, exe file)
And no i'm not making up the rayman CD stuff, I scanned the disk too and sure enuf it contained a pretty nasty virus... Unfortunately tho the rayman was installed and it took me ages to get rid of the virus file... permanently in use so I had to delete it through MS-DOS and delete things from the registry .

Norton is great... you just start downloading something and it stopes it immediately and tells ya too whilst actually being able to delete it (many other scanners AV software won't be able to delete anything...) Better than my friend's 49 Sasser / Korgo Worm / Virus Combo on his comp. No wonder his motherboard snapped in half tho . Nah... that was just a flying shoe!!!
Edited May 31, 2006 by Jimmy (see edit history)