A
Computer without Antivirus Software?
You are the best Antivirus
Antiviruses are excellent programs that protect
your computer against all kinds of threats to the integrity of your computer
and the preservation of your data and files. However, on certain occasions, its
use can put a burden on your user experience. This is especially true on older
or under-resourced computers where constant antivirus surveillance slows down
the system so much that it becomes a problem rather than a solution.
For this reason,
although as a general rule you must have the protection
of an antivirus and we strongly recommend its use, there are certain
cases in which it is better to uninstall it. But in return, you must modify some habits in the use of your equipment. Before
pressing the button that will uninstall the antivirus from your computer, you
should ask yourself if you are willing to make the commitment to act with
common sense when surfing the net. If you are a regular on the download pages
of files of dubious origin, you click on any banner that crosses your screen or
visit pages with adult content; it is definitely not a good idea to
uninstall the antivirus.
On the other hand, if you usually browse
reasonably safe sites, your file or document downloads are from their
respective official pages and you are aware that nobody gives away cars or
iPads for being the 1 millionth visitor who visits their website, you already
have half the battle won .
Google as
gatekeeper
Nobody knows the internet and its ins and
outs like the ubiquitous Google search engine. Since the robots of the Big G
search engine must examine and index most of the web pages on the net, it is
able to “guess” if a web page hides malicious content behind
a normal appearance.
For that reason, if
you are going to browse without the protection of an antivirus, it is better that
you do it with a browser that provides you with extra security. This browser
is Google
Chrome . Not
only for its versatility and ease of use, but for its sandbox ( sandbox ), which
analyzes the pages before showing them to you and determines if they really are
what they claim to be. This sandbox protects you against pages that contain
malware or are suspected of phishing. That is, fake pages that try to
impersonate others that are verified.
After
installing Google
Chrome on
your computer, make sure that the protection options are enabled. To check it,
click on the Customize and control Google Chrome icon ,
which you will find in the upper corner of its interface, and choose Settings.
Next, go to the
bottom of the options page and click on Show advanced options. Then,
in the Privacy section, check the Enable protection
against phishing and malicious software box.
Online antivirus
If even being careful with the files
you download from the Internet, you suspect that some of them could be harmful
to your computer; you can opt for online file analysis.
This service offers the ability to scan
suspicious files with more than 50 antivirus engines simultaneously, thus
offering even greater reliability than traditional antivirus. In addition,
its use is very simple. Access the Virustotal page and click Select to choose the suspicious file to be uploaded to
the service for analysis.
Then click on Analyze to start the analysis. After this, the file begins to upload and go through the different filters and engines of the most powerful antivirus on the market. When the process finishes, it shows you the results of the tests. It is possible that some of them give false positives with some files, check which engines are those that have given the false positives and if they are minimal, you can consider the file as safe and use it normally. To get quick and convenient access to this analysis method, you can create a shortcut to this service by clicking on the icon that appears in the address bar of your browser and dragging it to your desktop. You can also add it to your browser bookmarks.
On-demand antivirus
If you still prefer to continue using an
antivirus, but want to prevent it from being permanently active and consuming
resources on your computer, you can find a middle ground by using antivirus on
demand. Unlike traditional antivirus, this type of
antivirus is not continuously active, it only performs its function when you
start it, and it will return to its inactivity when it finishes its work,
freeing up the memory and resources it was using.
One of the best
considered is Clamwin ,
which is also free. This may be a good time to start applying some of the
tips on responsible sailing that we have given you in the previous sections.
After its
installation, start ClamWin and update its virus database by clicking on
the Starts Internet Update icon. Next, click
on a file with the right mouse button and choose the option Scan with ClamWin Free Antivirus. After this it
will start to analyze the file and offer the results of the analysis in a
pop-up box.
When you finish,
click Close and it will cease its activity
until you request its services again.
You can also schedule general scans of the
system or of certain folders. To do so, open the ClamWin interface and click on
the Displays Preferences Window icon . In
the box that appears, go to the Scheduled Scans tab and
click Add . Now, it indicates the
periodicity of the analysis and the folder to be analyzed. Click on OK and, when the time comes, ClamWin will start, analyze
the specified folder and close again.
Keep your team isolated
Another option to always keep your computer
safe without using an antivirus that constantly consumes your computer's
resources is the use of programs that isolate the operating system. That
way you preserve the integrity of your team at all times. The best way to do
this is with the Toolwiz Time Freeze program . When it starts
up again, it runs Time Freeze, but before the safe environment starts,
configure some folders to keep the documents or files generated while Time
Freeze is active. In this way, you will be able to install programs,
generate files with them and return the computer to the previous state, keeping
these files but not the programs that generated them.
To enable this
option, check the Enable Folder Exclusion when Time
Freeze is ON option .
Then create a folder
in an accessible place. For example, on the Desktop. Now, in the Time
Freeze box, click on Add folder. Use the
explorer to find the folder you just created and click OK . The
folder will be added to the exceptions box. If you wish, to make it more
convenient for you to activate and deactivate Time Freeze, you can activate the
program's status bar, which will appear at the top of the screen.
Click Start Time Freeze to start the safe
environment. Now the Time Freeze status bar has changed and indicates that
it is running. From this moment on, you can make all the changes you want:
modify the appearance of the system, install or uninstall programs, deactivate
devices. All this with the peace of mind that, whenever you want, you can
put your computer back as you had it just before starting Time Freeze.
If you want to keep any files, you must copy
them to the exception folder that you have created on the Desktop so that they
are not deleted when you restore your computer.
Recovers the previous state
When you've finished running your tests,
restore your computer to its previous state. Doing so is as simple as
activating Time Freeze was. Simply double-click on the Time
Freeze status bar to bring up the Time Freeze interface
again. Then click on the Stop Time Freeze button and
then on OK. Then your computer will
restart. When it starts up again, everything will be back to the way it
was when you started Time Freeze, except for the files you saved in the exclude
folder you set up.
If you believe that the program you have used
or the files are safe, you can install or use them on your computer regularly
without any risk to it, since it has previously verified that they really are
what they claimed to be.
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