Maximum PC

I spend a lot of time doing pseudo tech support on the TF2 SPUF(forum). A big thing that one needs to pay attention to is excepting your game files from your anti virus too prevent a large performance hit. I'm sure that this is a consideration for your non-Steam games(yes, they exist) too.

Everyone who truly plays TF2, which is 30% of people with a Steam account, has a giant, networked, easily accessed program folder completely unsecured. Yeah.

I looked into this, and I have not seen any names, but I hear tell on the forums security thread that most "hacks" one downloads are actually viruses(or contain them) that squat in your Steam folder, where it would also be easy to acquire ones accounting addresses (credit cards, paypal). Whats worse for you hat wearing TF2 fiends (or deagle wielding CS fiends), viruses have in the past activated VAC(Valve Anti Cheat).

Maybe relevant, maybe not, but I would occasionally take an effort to specifically scan it after looking at any fishy looking websites which cater to Valve fans. If your performance in Steam games suddenly and inexplicably takes a dive, well, before you uninstall, try a virus scan.

If you do tech support for other gamers (which I do, stupid incompetent Steam friends) I would keep this in mind.

As has been often repeated on Max PC, the best protection is being smart, so I think that spreading this around is a good idea. And I don't sit around dreaming up hacks all day, so yes, this is probably already being taken advantage of.

AVG scans these folders by default.

if your AV kills your performance in video games, then either you are using a crappy AV or your PC truly does suck. HD 3000 found on most i5's will play TF2 just fine.

And people who download hacks deserve to get virus'. Nuff said.

Agreed quite emphatically!

You haven't seen the monster TF2 has become in the recent updates, (although agreed, people think they can run it on a Pentium + Voodoo 2 box) it's as if they hit the "ship" button without testing anything. Crashes and poor performance abound.

Benchmark a game with a AV running and then not, you will see a multi FPS difference on anything less than a Core i5 if you are running something like AVG or Norton. Especially in high CPU games like Skyrim.

Uhh... yes I have... I still play TF2 quite a bit. Its not exactly a high demanding game engine... based on source from 2004...

I just ran it on my e6600 8800gts 640 and got 60+ fps in open areas at 1200p on high settings with no lag. And that's almost a 6 year old computer at this point. I'm sure it would play find on my 8600gt and 7900gs machines. The Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics would play this easily since it's essentially the same power or more than the 8800 gts 640. Runs great on my friends i5 $600 laptop just fine at 1080p.

And oh, that's with AV running... So again, you are talking out of your... cake?


You owe me 6000 folding points since I had to pull the 570 out and stop production.




And who the fuck uses Norton still?!?!?

Actually, Norton started making a good product with 360 a few years ago. Before that, yes, anything Norton was either buggy, trash, or dangerous.

http://internet-security-suite-review.toptenreviews.com/

Norton and McAfee are unadulterated crap! I remove it from all machines I work on and install it its place MSE and never have a complaint.

Nasty

I prefer AVG, but yeah.

Norton actually did passably in the past few MPC AV reviews. They're improving, but AVG and MSE are still better.

The reason people do not complain about Microsoft Security Essentials is because it is such a poor program that people have no clue about how much it does NOT do, and they are therefore clueless.

Careful there. Nasty's our resident anti-virus goto guy. He knows his stuff.
I have dealt with a virus on a system with MSE, but the PEBKAC[1], so it wasn't an MSE problem.






[1]
Problem Exist(ed) Between Keyboard and Chair

Which this says otherwise about MSE's effectiveness...

All I am gonna say is if you wanna bog your system down...go ahead....MSE works just fine for me....and I am NOT a microsoft lover at all.

Nasty

RE: Above comments about recommendations to use Microsoft MSE.

LatiosXT, I gave up on your link when not being able to connect to the site after 20 minutes.

Nasty may be the resident anti-virus goto guy, however, others have been in the computer industry for quite some time.

I have made errors from time to time because my memory is giving me problems, so, I am not infallible and admit to mistakes when I find that I have made one. On the other hand, I have been using computers since at least around 1981 and began my professional computer carrier in 1984.

During that time I began as a highly educated technician and computer designer, owned my own business, and was a computer consultant primarily in hardware, for over 25 years. This does not mean I knew nothing about software, it means that I did not pursue a degree as a programmer to write code.

When Microsoft introduced MSE, IT was a virus. I am not backing down from suggesting people use something other than MSE, it is not the best anti-virus for every version of Windows, if any.

However, if people want to use MSE, it is fine with me.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376220,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403986,00.asp

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/Forefrontedgegeneral/thread/e8eb8300-ecdd-4b23-b6df-f6ac0a67a226

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,79777-order,4/description.html

Version 1.0, problems right out of the gate: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353448,00.asp

http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/09/problems-with-microsoft-security.html

And, the list goes on and on and on and on, well, you get the picture.

We're not saying MSE is the best anti-malware software. We're all just cheap asses with common sense that can use MSE and some other anti-malware and not be the dumbass who clicks on "you've been selected to win a free iPod!" or "Your computer is infected with a bajillion viruses, click here to fix them!", and MSE is good enough for the job.

Otherwise, yes I do believe that Kaspersky or NOD32 is better. But I don't want another $50/yr or whatever commitment.

If you want a lot of viruses not to enter your system, use WOT, it saves me a lot of trips to family, friends and a couple of businesses I help out when they have problems.

http://www.mywot.com/en/download

If the circle next to the search result is red and you click on it you are dead!

Yellow is be careful and green is ok.

One of the people I worked with never used any form of anti-virus or anti-maleware. All he used was a well encrypted router and common sense. Don't get any virus attacks at all and has been running for quite a few years this way. So if you want to surf prON then nothing short of running a linux live cd with your hard drive unplugged will do.

Nasty

If you are relying on one single tool for prevention of viruses, malware, and such you are doing it wrong plain and simple. I don't care what anti-virus software you use, people have their preferences just like anything else. Yes, some are clearly better than others, but the only way to be truly somewhat safe is to have layers of protection.

Agreed, I have layered protection, however, I am not sure how many people agree with you. Recently fewer layers are needed for protection because of improvements, depending upon what is being used.

I agree with you, fewer layers are definitely needed, but within the security world layers are still needed.

Or you know, you could just use the latest edition of Common Sense, run your regular account as a Standard User (and make your admin account have a decent password), and do your browsing in a VM or sandbox environment.

Especially the second one. If anyone is still running as an admin willy nilly on the internet, I think they deserve to be overrun with security problems