Spring RTS Engine

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000803.html

Thats right, Vista boost, switch your user account type to a standard user and get an instant performance boost!

And get rid of that norton antivirus, 2368% slower disk access? 48% slower boot time? 20% cpu speed degradation? wtf?

antivirus is like sawing off your leg so you dont ever stub your toe

ANTI-VIRUS DOES FUCKUP YOUR SYSTEM...


Seriously, I haven't used anti-virus in about 9 years...

Sure I've had a few viral hits, irritating, but nothing I couldn't fix.

the computer runs like a friggin champ without it too

"I don't use condoms because sex feels better without them and I pull out"
-Many unwilling fathers before the fact

Wow that standard user thing is crazy!

AVG 7.1 Free 15% 0% 19%
0% O_o

I don't download random files, but I don't want a browser exploit to lead to a reformat. This computer only spends .01% of the time booting, and the harddrive is plenty fast. AVG ftw.

Antivirus's dont have to suck if you can get the right ones.

AVG seems the best for minimal system performance hit.

Although XP or Vista in a virtual machine will give better performance than Norton antivirus.

avg also happens to be shit

avast! 4.7 Home 4% 8% 115%

use this instead.

avast! rocks, i use it whenever i am on windows

Aye, avast! is the way to go imo

Avast! is the best solution ... IMO at the moment.

I use nod 32

iamacup wrote:avg also happens to be shit

avast! 4.7 Home 4% 8% 115%

use this instead.

Assuming this is at least mildly accurate... slow disk access over 50%? No thanks. Avast! has better anti-spyware iirc, but I don't really need realtime protection for that...

gamer17 wrote:I use nod 32

I prefer GDI

avast! 4.7 Home 4% 8% 115%
AVG 7.1 Free 15% 0% 19%

AVG does the job, may not be brilliant but its the least impacting antivirus. The real security breaches are from the users who dont think or systems that havent got the latest patches.

http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/other/ ... ows_down/5

I'm using avast, tried nod 32, didn't like it as well..
Also, lol command and conquer.

Interesting... But running in a protected account would I think be much more inconvenient than having slower disk access (I have AVG and windows defender.)

Is there a reason though to use a protected account instead of user account control? (currently I do neither.)

Under Vista, Administrator accounts are subject to numerous additional security features when things like UAC are turned on.

For example, registry virtualization, preventing arbitrary registry changes.

However under a standard account these proactive features arent necessary. The vast majority of attack avenues for malware become dead ends on a standard suer account. Sadly Microsoft started a convention in windows a few years ago where the default account type was administrator, which persists. To get around this they implemented a lot of proactive security features to protect administrator accounts.

The morale of the storey:

Only use admin accounts when you really need to. Standard accounts are always safer and faster, regardless of wether your running Vista XP 2000 or Ubuntu/redhat/etc

But is there actually anything that an administrator account + UAC is vulnerable to that a protected account is not vulnerable to?

User runnign UAC+Admin looks at a shady website.

Shady website uses exploit to install spyware.

UAC might give a warning but therell always be that 1 method of getting around it.

OR

User running standard account looks at a shady website.

Shady website uses exploit to install spyware. Exploit runs into dead end and fails to install, as standard users dont have the necessary access.

User continues surfing shady websites.

Never run as an administrator. Vista changes some things around so you really can work under Vista as a standard user without constantly flitting back and forth between an admin account and a standard account.

The simple act of switching to a standard account makes a huge swathe of exploits useless and renders a lot of malware inert.