Windows 7 paid anti-virus program

[leesr]

A little confused by others confusion.

You have a desktop where programs install program icons.
You have a start button that you click and it brings up all the programs that are installed
You have a tray in the lower right where your terminate and stay resident programs reside. (clock etc)
You have a task bar where you can pin your favorite programs

When you do click the start button, you can totally ignore the panel beside the program list if you like. I actually use it to drag
programs that I use a lot for easy access, but like i said you can ignore it.

Hi Mike

LOL your desktop looks clean compared with mine I have to many short cuts.

My complain is the administrative side of win 10, and the work arounds I have to get from Point A to Point B
I seriously don't like the yearly fees for MS 365, and every other time it's requiring re product key code registration to run MS 365 apps.
did I say I hate the cloud ugg
with Win 7 and above, accomplish Admin work one has to turn on Administrator in command prompt. which is no big deal but more work.
just little quirks as such, any way it seems they trying to lock down the box and make it cumbersome to the owner, it's different in a work environment
that may be justified.

[Mike Amick]

Hi

One of the tricks I use to help keep my desktop clean is ... I create a sub folder like .. ""Maintenance"" and drag it onto my desktop and then all the icons that have
to do with Maintenance like process viewers, or uninstaller programs etc, I drag into that icon. My 3dprinter icon / sub folder prob has a couple hundred icons in it.

I know I can just create a folder right on the desktop, but you can't change the icon directly on a folder , it has to be a shortcut to change the icon

As far as the yearly fees, I use office 2019 which doesn't have a yearly cost. Not quite as capable as 365 but almost and lots cheaper.

And as to the admin side of things, win 7 or 10 both have a bit of a learning curve. If you can do it in 7, you can do it in 10

[wmgeorge]

One of the big reasons I finally went from Win 7 to 10 is the permissions issue in 7. It was always telling me I did not have permission to delete or move a file, you had to have Admin privilege's, and I DID. Happy I switched but I do limit the Upgrades.

[leesr]

One of the big reasons I finally went from Win 7 to 10 is the permissions issue in 7. It was always telling me I did not have permission to delete or move a file, you had to have Admin privilege's, and I DID. Happy I switched but I do limit the Upgrades.

yes that is BS right, look at the users rights and it would say Administrator, But your really not full administrator(Super User) you have to turn on The full Administrator (Super User)
through the command prompt, pain the xxx, have to type a script
then the real administrator log on pops up to login.

[DICKEYBIRD]

yes that is BS right, look at the users rights and it would say Administrator, But your really not full administrator(Super User) you have to turn on The full Administrator (Super User)
through the command prompt, pain the xxx, have to type a script
then the real administrator log on pops up to login.

Thanks! I didn't know about that. That's probably why I can't access data from some of my old HDD's.

[psomero]

The premium (paid) version of malwarebytes will protect you from many things, but it's not an antivirus product. Its detection rates are lower than many antivirus products. It can be used alongside an antivirus product for better protection. Not saying it's a bad product (and it may be enough if you are computer-savvy), but a good antivirus product will give better protection than malwarebytes by itself.

This is most certainly not true in my experience. Antimalware = antivirus. It detects and blocks malicious code on your machine. It is very effective.

Having used a number of other antivirus programs which failed on 0-days or new threats, mbam was always my go-to to get rid of the fresh nasties. I'd say they have probably the best detection engine available out of any commercially available AV solution. Symantec endpoint protection? Bloated and like a sieve. Mcaffee? garbage. Kaspersky? meh. Trend micro? Their online scan engine was good before they sold out and it was gutted. MBAM with chameleon was better at evading anti-anti-virus and killing infections, though.

Using the real time threat protection in the paid version, in conjunction with windows defender (which I don't really rely on) I have not needed any additional protection for over a decade.

[J Tiers]

Ditto here, Malwarebytes removed things from other computers I was asked to look at better than most, found nasties the others missed.

And that was the free version

[tom_d]

Anybody else on the forum allergic to W10 other than me?

I've never stopped using W7 for my meager needs and haven't had any malware attacks (knock on wood.) I picked up a refurb W10 Pro Dell PC for SWMBO a couple years ago but she never really adapted & hates it with a passion. I have to help her with it & we end up yelling at each other....not good. I got it for her originally because W10 is "better" & has Windows Defender to help cover her.

I "inherited" a couple fairly decent Dell W10 PC's from work recently & have been fiddling around installing W7 and a 500 gig WD SSD on one of them. (I have a few weeks of fiddle time due to the recovery from my 2nd Carotid Endarterectomy, done last Monday)

Anyhoo, anybody here have any first hand experience with a paid-for virus program for W7 that would keep it reasonably secure? I've been looking at Bit Defender in a package deal to protect the 4 PC's I have, including SWMBO's W10 PC when/if I flush it take it back to W7. I know that W7 support is over from MS over but I was hoping to stretch it out for a couple or 3 years more with a paid-for security program.

Thoughts?

I too had a sever allergic reaction to Win10 the first time I tried it. In my experience W7 is almost as good as XP, but unfortunately both are no longer available to me. I was lucky enough to be redirected over to the LINUX camp and have found LINUX Mint to be a near perfect substitute for W7. The user interface is as near to 7 as I've seen anywhere. Super easy to use, and full of practical features. For anyone who is a casual computer user like me, and doesn't want to get caught up in the Windows whirlwind, I can highly recommend LINUX Mint. I still have 10 on the hard drive, but it's partitioned so the machine boots to LINUX on start up, leaving 10 alone. If I want to, I can still reboot the system and toggle over to 10 if I want to, but I've yet to do that since making the upgrade.

[pinstripe]

This is most certainly not true in my experience. Antimalware = antivirus. It detects and blocks malicious code on your machine. It is very effective.

I agree that the name means little, but MBAM frequently has lower detection rates than its peers when independently tested. You can argue about the test methodologies, but that is what I have seen over the years. MBAM did not achieve a 6/6 for protection in the latest AV-TEST results, and hasn't achieved it all year. Other products did get 6/6, including Microsoft's Defender (the free one that comes with Windows 10). Defender rated higher than MBAM in all three criteria, and had higher protection scores than MBAM in all the 2020 test. I've got nothing against MBAM. I've got several lifetime licenses for it (which are mostly unused these days), but there are better products.

Using the real time threat protection in the paid version, in conjunction with windows defender (which I don't really rely on) I have not needed any additional protection for over a decade.

Maybe you would be just fine with Defender alone and avoid MBAM's performance hit? It had the lowest performance score in the latest AV-TEST results.

Ditto here, Malwarebytes removed things from other computers I was asked to look at better than most, found nasties the others missed. And that was the free version

The free version remediates, but it does not protect. Also, some of those "nasties" may be harmless. Many paid-for security products like to make noise to let you know that they just "saved you" so that you renew them next year. I've seen stuff go straight past MBAM and other products. None of them are perfect. If the computer had a really bad "nasty", then you wouldn't even be able to start MBAM.

[J Tiers]

If the computer had a really bad "nasty", then you wouldn't even be able to start MBAM.

These were in some cases nasties that had already disabled AVG and others. And you could not load any AV program from a website. I was able, in those cases, to load MBAM off a stick and run it with a successful removal.

Apparently they "knew about" the sites, but did not recognize MBAM coming from a stick.

[skunkworks]

I am not a big windows fan but do think windows 10 is decent enough now to move to from 7. Here is another personal anecdotal evidence.. Since most people have switch to windows 10 - I don't get totally infected computers anymore. I can't remember the last time I had to work on a broken windows 10 computer. So - certainly something better there.

BTW - you can still buy office. 2016 and 2019... (don't have to rent office 365)

sam

ps - you can still use a windows 7 pro licence to activate windows 10.. (as of a few weeks ago anyway)

[CPeter]

I have not read through all of this, but recommend that you install "Open Shell" With it you can make yo windows 10 look like Windows 7 or even XP. It is free and bug free. I have it on 4 computers at home and have installed in on several more for other people. It is like a miracle after the windows 10 experience. All the benefits of 10 and it looks and acts like 7 or XP.
Peter

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/det...sic_start.html

[pinstripe]

These were in some cases nasties that had already disabled AVG and others. And you could not load any AV program from a website. I was able, in those cases, to load MBAM off a stick and run it with a successful removal.

Apparently they "knew about" the sites, but did not recognize MBAM coming from a stick.

This is actually a failure of the malware. Installing a filter driver allows the malware to block access to files. It's also how antivirus products work. The filter driver is notified of all file system requests. It scans the file on read/write and can abort the request with an error if it detects malware. Malware does the same thing to stop antivirus programs from running. So a couple of things happened in these cases.

1. The user made a mistake. They either ran with an admin account, or they elevated permissions when requested by the malware. Or maybe it was an old version of Windows where running admin was normal and UAC didn't exist. Windows was less secure back then.
2. The installed security software failed to detect the malware. If it was scanning the files prior to execution (not always the case with free products), then it would have had the opportunity to abort the read and delete/quarantine the file before Windows executed it.

And that is why I wouldn't recommend the free version of MBAM, or any other product that doesn't scan in real-time as a way to protect your computer. They allow the malware to execute. If the malware is nasty, then you have no hope of removing it. You will lose your data (and possibly backups if they are accessible). You won't be able to run MBAM or any other product. Your only options will be to restore/rebuild the PC, or pay the bad guy some BTC in the hope that they will give you the password to decrypt your system.

As I said before, I have nothing against MBAM. I bought five lifetime licenses back in 2012. I did so because I thought it was a good product back then, and it's an even better product today. But there are even better products today. So anyone who is looking to buy such a product today is better off buying something better than MBAM. This market changes all the time. MBAM may well be the best product on the market in a few years, but it's not today.