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by theossuary 3133 days ago
I think so. Antivirus systems are a huge attack surface. Maybe have windless defender installed; make sure Windows automated patching is on; use the latest version of Chrome or Firefox with an ad blocker installed, and don't give them access to the admin account.

And if you're paranoid like me get a managed switch and setup Snort to monitor your network. That'll protect you more than an antivirus will.
2 comments
FreakLegion 3133 days ago
I'll second the recommendation for Windows Defender, based on how well it blocks the bad stuff. But to be clear, 1) Windows Defender isn't any more secure than other AVs, e.g. [1], and 2) the risk from AVs is negligible and far outweighed by the benefit, for the average user.

1. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/windo...

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megaman22 3133 days ago
Windows Defender is at least unobtrusive. Got hit with a cryptolocker last year, and then mandated usage of some garbage WebRoot product that brings a quad-core i7, 32gb RAM and SSD workstation to its knees. Not sure which was worse...
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davidscolgan 3133 days ago
Makes sense. For some adblocking on steroids, put all of this in your hosts file: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

12,000 domains of ads and tracking blocked at the OS level!

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folknor 3133 days ago
I've used https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts for years now, and any close- and extended-family laptop or computer I touch gets it either silently or with some explanation if they ask me what I'm doing. Noone has ever complained. My only gripe is that I haven't written a cron-type update script for my extended family members who use Windows.

Which means I only update it for them periodically. It's still better than not doing it.

It aggregates someonewhocares.org and many other sources into a combined hosts file, to the point where it actually slows down DNS lookups noticably on most computers.

I even use it on my phones, and all other devices where I can access the filesystem.

Almost all devices in the world support a hosts file, becase most of the network stacks in use today spring from the same code.

EDIT: It has 40-55 thousand host entries, depending on which version you use. In my scripts I just curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/h...

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davidscolgan 3133 days ago
Oi! Thanks for this. I am going to start using it from now on.
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