# PC Recommendations (Virus Protection - Browsers - etc) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 12, 2017, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996 "2017-01-12T23:48:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2017, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/1 "2017-01-12T23:48:26Z")
Okay. So I just reloaded Windows on my machine for the … well, I lost count. I think it’s the seventh or eight time since I bought the thing less than four years ago. I do accept that the underlying issue is most probably the hardware (it’s already doing that minor three-second freeze when typing or scrolling every so often), but I can’t afford a new computer at the moment. So I’m wondering if my application and surfing habits are to blame for some issues. That said … I’ve always run Firefox. Mostly for the script and ad blocking and the fact that I don’t trust Microsoft or Google. But maybe that’s just been a fool’s path. Also, I pretty much gave up on paying for virus protection. I didn’t really see the value anymore. However, browsing naked, as it were, probably isn’t the best idea either. So … I’m open to recommendation for browsers - which ones do everyone like the most - which ones run the most securely and stably? Also virus protection. Something preferably within my budget (free). I’ve run AVG in the past, but I got sick of the daily pop-ups begging to buy the deluxe version of their app. What say the Dopers? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/2 "2017-01-13T00:05:28Z")
One other notion … Steam. I’m a Steam-head. It’s always been the first application I’ve loaded once I put Windows back in order. Has anyone ever had issues with Steam playing havoc with their system? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/3 "2017-01-13T00:58:04Z")
I use Avast free software. With them the way not to get popups is to turn on their silent/gaming mode (so you only get the ads when you are restarting the computer). ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/4 "2017-01-13T14:10:13Z")
Thanks Past (can I call you Past?). I just may go with that one. No one else can throw me a bone? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/5 "2017-01-13T14:30:10Z")
What version of Windows? Windows 8 and above had a perfectly fine free antivirus built in. We recommend to our students that they remove whatever other antivirus came with the machine and just use Windows Defender. However, if you have Windows 7, and either couldn’t or missed the chance to update, then install [Microsoft Security Essentials](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14210/security-essentials-download) (free). You also should install Malwarebytes to scan the computer; it’s an excellent tool for cleaning. ADWCleaner is a must to clean and remove browser add-ons (that’s the most common cause of problems these days). Web browsers all have roughly equivalent security. If this is a virus problem, it’s more likely due to the sites you visit and not your browser. However, there’s a good chance this isn’t a virus issue and may be due to the hardware. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/6 "2017-01-13T15:24:44Z")
^^^I agree with all that. I used to use AVG, but Windows Defender works very well, as does Malwarebytes. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/7 "2017-01-13T20:03:28Z")
Thanks for all the great info. I do indeed run Windows 8 and I’m supposing that Window’s Defender works well enough. Browsers? Anyone have anything bad to say about Firefox? I thought I had heard some issue about freezing with that browser, the likes of which I’ve experienced (but again – probably hardware issues). My father had also mentioned something about “memory leak.” I haven’t done any research on that, but the behavior exhibited has always made me think I had bad memory cards of some stripe. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2017, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/8 "2017-01-13T20:39:00Z")
Antivirus is not the same thing as antimalware. You probably need both. The former actively monitors threats, and the latter can do similar or just be run periodically. Usually the free versions only scan on demand. The OP is correct: there is not reason to pay for any of these. In Win7 and older, Defender only did malware, while MSE did viruses. In 8 and later, the two were combined into the new Defender. I use Firefox but lately I’ve noticed it slowing, and having issues with Flash. There are things I don’t like about Chrome but haven’t switched. I recently “refreshed” Firefox (lose all your addons, so take a screenshot first) and it seemed to help some. Zero problems with Steam. Some games don’t play well with Windows’ Aero visualization themes and want you to change it to the most basic level. ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/9 "2017-01-14T20:59:33Z")
Memory leaks aren’t because the physical memory is bad: a memory leak is caused by a program that requests x amount of memory from the OS, and when it’s done with it, informs the OS that it’s done with less than it initially requested, because of some error in its calculation. Therefore, the OS allocates say, 450kb of memory, then takes back 400kb when the program returns it. If this continues over a long period of time (or the memory leak is particularly bad) the computer winds up with large amounts of memory allocated to a program, and therefore unusable by anything else, that the program isn’t using because it doesn’t think that memory is allocated to it. It is easily resolved with a restart, though, so you really only have to worry about **bad** memory leaks that will eat up all your available memory within a day or even a few hours sometimes. There’s rarely anything to do about them other than stop using the program, as far as I know. Note: some of my details may be off, since I’m not really a programmer or anything and perhaps someone will correct me, but that’s the general gist of memory leaks. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2017, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/10 "2017-01-14T22:17:33Z")
Memory leaks are rarely due to simple arithmetic error. The programmers just didn’t keep track of all the chunks of memory that were being allocated and made sure that when they were no longer being used that the OS was aware that it could have it back. In C this is so easy to do that it’s practically a requirement that a program has a memory leak. Some languages such as Java do a better job on automatic garbage collection (recovering unused memory) but if the programmer maintains a reference to a reference to a reference … that they forgot wasn’t needed anymore, the GC won’t recover it. You don’t always have to reboot to fix a memory leak. Sometimes just killing and restarting the program will do it. (Back in the day I used to do this with the Mosaic browser every 3 days or so.) ---
**Author:** ![AllanGH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@AllanGH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllanGH)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/11 "2017-01-15T05:49:29Z")
I don’t use Windows myself, but, in my family, I’m the go-to guy for things computational. I just did a bunch of repairs on a notebook for my daughter, this year, and had to do a re-load of the OS that she was using. After that, I did the standard load of free and open software that will run on Windows (from 7 to 10). Since I still have the SD card that all that stuff was on, to install from, here’s my standard list of goodies that I install, and their primary reason for installing: 7zip - for dealing with RAR archives Audacity - audio file editing and mixing AVG - virus scanning and protection BitTorrent - Some software projects can only be downloaded over the torrent Chrome - obvious FireFox Browser - obvious GIMP - Editing and creating image files GIMPShop - Editing and creating image files HandBrake - Dealing with DVDs Inkscape - SVG editing Juice - online media aggregator LibreOffice - because nobody needs microsoft office MalWareBytes - more AV tools Opera - obvious Pidgin - all messaging in one place Scribus - desktop publishing SMPlayer - Play local media files SunBird - calendaring functions Thunderbird - Email grabbing and sending VLC Media Player - Audio and video player Skype was deliberately left out because you can do video calls through Google Hangouts. ---
**Author:** ![AllanGH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@AllanGH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AllanGH)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/12 "2017-01-15T06:01:47Z")
Add BlueStacks for Android Emulation to the above. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/13 "2017-01-16T09:20:43Z")
> [@AllanGH](#): > > I don’t use Windows myself, but, in my family, I’m the go-to guy for things computational. > > I just did a bunch of repairs on a notebook for my daughter, this year, and had to do a re-load of the OS that she was using. After that, I did the standard load of free and open software that will run on Windows (from 7 to 10). Since I still have the SD card that all that stuff was on, to install from, here’s my standard list of goodies that I install, and their primary reason for installing: > > 7zip - for dealing with RAR archives > Audacity - audio file editing and mixing > AVG - virus scanning and protection > BitTorrent - Some software projects can only be downloaded over the torrent > Chrome - obvious > FireFox Browser - obvious > GIMP - Editing and creating image files > GIMPShop - Editing and creating image files > HandBrake - Dealing with DVDs > Inkscape - SVG editing > Juice - online media aggregator > LibreOffice - because nobody needs microsoft office > MalWareBytes - more AV tools > Opera - obvious > Pidgin - all messaging in one place > Scribus - desktop publishing > SMPlayer - Play local media files > SunBird - calendaring functions > Thunderbird - Email grabbing and sending > VLC Media Player - Audio and video player > > Skype was deliberately left out because you can do video calls through Google Hangouts. Agree for most of those, but: Why 3 browsers? Especially Opera. I need MS Office. Excel is 100x better than crappy Calc. I prefer [Paint.NET](http://Paint.NET) to GIMP. It removes all the awkward controls from GIMP/Photoshop, and does 99.9% of the same. I like μTorrent (aka uTorrent) for that purpose. Vuze is more proprietary but pretty good. Is AVG still in bloat mode? Stuff like Audacity, Inkscape, etc., I don’t think you need until you have a reason to. For most people it’s not too common. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/15 "2017-01-20T16:42:00Z")
Computer went tits-up again yesterday. I shall be re-re-reloading Windows again, but I’ve developed a new theory that screams of correlation without causation but I can’t think of anything else. Sims 3. Every time I’ve loaded this game on my computer, whether from discs or from Steam, I end up reloading Windows inside of a couple of months. It always loads some Netware something or another and I’m wondering if that’s causing a problem. My machine doesn’t have a an Intel chip but an Athlon chip. Would make any kind of difference in any thing? Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uosdwis_R.Dewoh)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/16 "2017-01-20T17:19:32Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > My machine doesn’t have a an Intel chip but an Athlon chip. Would make any kind of difference in any thing? No, there should be no differences for regular users. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/17 "2017-01-20T17:27:54Z")
Ninite is very usefull when restoring/commissioning a new PC. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/18 "2017-01-20T21:28:11Z")
The computer is back up on life support. I don’t know. It still seems a bit choppy. I’m not convinced the tower is not just going to explode next to me and shoot shrapnel into my head at any moment (oh, if only … the sweet release. I digress). So anyway, this segues nicely into my next stage of life: \*\*Operation Simplification \*\* I think I’m finally going to try to get my shit together and stop juggling so many unimportant balls. Cable TeeVee and Sims 3, it was nice knowing you (he says knowing full well he’s said it all before). Sorry. Didn’t mean to go existential on you. ---
**Author:** ![NetTrekker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nettrekker/32/2909_2.png) [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-recommendations-virus-protection-browsers-etc/776996/19 "2017-01-21T03:17:50Z")
I have used Avast and AVG free antivirus s/w in the past; recently I was using Avira (free) but tired of the upgrade nagging so I was looking for a good deal on a paid internet security package. Lo and behold I was going thru some clearance bins at Walmart and found an Intel Security / McAfee 2016 product marked down to $7 and at the register it was only actually $4 and is still good for a full year. The box only contained a license key # and the s/w itself was via download. So you might want to keep your eyes open for something similar. I really want to use Firefox primarily (because I like the simple dropdown tab list) but agree with the comments about memory leaks. Especially once I have a lot of tabs/pages open it just seems to bog down and become unresponsive. I just can’t understand why Chrome doesn’t have a similar built-in tab list feature rather than squishing the tabs together until they’re unreadable.