Do you guys run Anti Virus?

[bigdog1977]

Just bought a 320g hard drive had all my emus, roms, and FE running great when I did the smart thing of searching the net for PSX roms. I got a pretty bad virus. =( I really didnt want to put AVG on the PC cause it slows down the start up, but then again I dont want to keep reformatting my hard drive and start over anymore. What do you guys do? Was thinking of just burning everything on my other pc then transfer over, but that seems like a pain in the ASS! Thanks

[retrometro]

on my previous cab, I didn't run av on it.  but i unplugged the nic everytime i was done updating.  now, the new cab is in the middle of the living room and is used for browsing and music, etc... av is definitely on it.

[ahofle]

I use Antivir on my home PCs.  You can shut down the scheduler and on access stuff so it doesn't slow things down and still scan things on demand when you need to.  I like it.

http://www.free-av.com/en/download/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html

[cadmium]

No. On a modern well patched system, as you are careful with what you download, the chances of a virus are next to nothing. Besides resident antivirus protection is about an automatic 1/3 off of your system resources. Not to mention that none of them have a 100% success rate. On a dedicated arcade box where you aren't doing a lot of browsing or downloading of apps, you don't really have much risk.

Staying up to date with security patches is more effective to avoid viruses and worms.

[Nologic]

Not sure where you are coming up with your stats...but I'm running NOD32 and it certainly doesn't use up any where close to a third.

4mb egui
140kb ehmsas
1.6mb ehRecvr
1.6mb ehSched
1.6mb ehtray
33mb ekrn

Hell Firefox is currently using twice that.

Now maybe if someone was running Win98 and was only using the magic 128mb for system memory your stats would be correct...other wise they are way off base.

Now if memory serves me right NOD32 has a 95% success rate with unknown viruses, and a 100% with known...and considering they update their definitions 3 or more times a day...I'd say they are staying on top of things as well as can be expected.

Your advice that staying up to date on OS security patches is enough is horridly flawed. Clearly you haven't read up on the recent DNS poisoning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_cache_poisoning hehe I'm sure some one has your Windows Updates.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I have the bare minimum on my cabinet.  And that includes NO anti-virus.  I NEVER connect it to the Internet, ever.  I screen everything on my normal PC first if I ever want to update something on the cabinet.

Also, I back up my cabinet when I make major changes as well on an external drive (which I scan regularly).

~ DeLuSioNaL

[bigdog1977]

I have the bare minimum on my cabinet.  And that includes NO anti-virus.  I NEVER connect it to the Internet, ever.  I screen everything on my normal PC first if I ever want to update something on the cabinet.

Also, I back up my cabinet when I make major changes as well on an external drive (which I scan regularly).

~ DeLuSioNaL

Great idear! Thanks dude!

[EVEGames]

If you run Visual Pinball, you may find that it does not get along with your AV software.  Maybe this has been resolved in nered versions of VP?  But I'm with Delusional, I would never connect my arcade rig to the internet.

[Space Fractal]

For cabinet use I guess a Firewall and a good hosts to block parasites sites (search in google) is more important. It even better if you are behind a DHCP routher/gateway and maybe a hardware firewall, so the cabinet doesn't have a direct access to the internet (normal with most IPS in Denmark).

You still need have antivirus on your primary machine, because first they are in, they can go over the network if you are not carefull. Today it typical Trojan that is most problem that threat various security holes.

That is what I have done for years, so I think I have never have anti virus on my cabinet either due the above reason.

[richms]

I dont browse the net on my arcade machine. Windows updates come from the local wsus server, it has no default gateway so it cant get on the net if it wanted to. Install files I download to my raid and keep, so anything dodgey will come up when I am downloading on the desktop. roms are torrented on a desktop computer to a network share on the arcade machine so once again, no need for direct internet access. I am planning on streamlining things for when I build another machine but till then the manual way is fine. I would like to build a single image that I use on all machines but thats effort I cant be bothered with at the moment.

I did let it on the net for a while so minilyrics could get things, but now I just search albums as I add them to my raid on my desktop computer so they get downloaded at that time, then they are there for the other computers.

[Namco]

Clean Internet practices, not falling for Internet scams, keeping Vista updated, great email filters, and a NAT router ensure that I stay virus and malware free without anti-virus.