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MS support for Windows 7 will terminate in a few months.
I want to continue using it;any suggestions for a good
anti-virus program,free or not? Anything else I should do
to prepare for non support?
73
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I am still using Windows NT 4.0 on one of the workstation. Works great for what I need.
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I plan on using Win 7 for as long as I can. Hoping they'll keep extending like they did with xp.
Technician
1. A person that fixes stuff you can't.
2. One who does precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge.
JaxCoder.com
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Mike Hankey wrote: I plan on using Win 7 for as long as I can. Me too, although my eventual upgrade to VS 2019 will force me to go to 10.
/ravi
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ummm, I'm using vs2019 in win7 (virtual machine)
ok, can't do metro apps but everything else seems fine.
Message Signature
(Click to edit ->)
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I think it may have a problem building Android apps for ARM.
(VS is my exclusive IDE for building Android apps.)
/ravi
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Agreed
Technician
1. A person that fixes stuff you can't.
2. One who does precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge.
JaxCoder.com
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yea running VS 2019 on Win 7 with no issues
Buckrogerz
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I think VS2019 has a problem building for Android (ARM) on Win7 SP1.
/ravi
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ESET NOD32..... AND REGULAR BACKUPS.... + GET THE LATEST CHROME + FIREFOX... DITCH IE
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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There's nothing stopping you from using it.
The only thing you're not going to get is patch for any newly found security holes. Antivirus software isn't going to help that situation much either.
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You haven't had support since it was released. Why should EOL make things any different.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010 ----- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010 ----- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Which elements of the support are truly essential to you?
Not very much of it means anything to me. I once had a virus infection, of the kind that was called a "boot sector virus" (if you never heard of that before, ask your grandpa). After that it has been quiet. Probably because it is not my habit to jump around all over the Internet searching for dubious pictures and other dubious stuff. When I receive an email telling me that I have won the first prize in a lottery I never heard of, I click the "delete" button rather than the "collect your prize here" button. Every day I delete from 20 to 50 spam mails without even opening them. Even when something appears to come from a recognized company, I always hover over the links to see if the URLs are reasonable. If they are not, I delete the mail.
The same goes for links in web pages: For years, I have had the "hover before click" habit. If the real URL is different from the displayed one, or when the display text is in a "user friendly" format rather than a URL, but the real URL looks dubious, then I never click it.
Also: The "Local Area Connection" icon has for years had a firm position in the upper left hand corner of my screen. Before I start any Internet related work, I double click it to enable the connection. As soon as I am done Internetting and start, say, editing a document or open Visual Studio, I rignt click / disable the network connection. The network connection is enabled only when I am actively using it. In theory I am still not 100% safe, but I haven't had any boot sector virus on my PC lately
My PC is a tool for doing "serious" work (/hobbies), and for retrieving (reasonably) reliable information: I go to recognized, reliable web sites for information (yes, that includes Code Project ) and a handful of web newspaper and similar services, such as the weather forecast. As far as possible I avoid any web offering spying on me, so I have neither FB, Twitter, Flickr or similar accounts - and the Windows support wouldn't protect me from that sort of threats anyway. Another one of my good habits: If I am forced to log in somewhere, the minimum level of privacy protection is to immediately afterwards close down the net browser completely before doing anything else. Logging out, or preferably restarting the PC, reduces the risk of spying further. Even if you accept cookies for the sake of convenience, doing a weekly cleanup (or more often) of cookies from sites you do not recognize, is a worthwhile effort to keep you out of the eyes of those wanting to exploit you one way or the other. (Again, we are talking about threats that continued W7 support wouldn't help you against in any case!)
You still will have the protection against all the currently known malware; the ones that could be a threat are those developed anno 2020 or later. The less people use W7, the less the threat will be - no intruder today cares to develop malware attacking Win 3.11 vulnurabilities. Hardly Win95 ones. W7 will be safer and safer, as time goes on. The general proctection mechanisms have become quite good over the years, the new ones are essentially in the class "you asked for it, you got it". You opened a dubious web site, you accepted some attractive-looking special offer. And you did it logged in as a user having Administrator privileges...
Another essential point: I keep my data on separate disks, not on C:, and all the disks are backed up, incrementally, day by day, and the backup is offline (and offsite, but that is not relevant here). Ransomware is often be so simplistic that it only considers C:, but if that happens to me, I will simply reformat C: and reinstall all the software. All installers are saved on an external disk. If some ransomware actually attacks my 14 terabytes on other disks (yes, I am doing a lot of HD video editing on my PC. but I assume that you guessed that...), I might loose the edits I have made that same day, before I got around to make the incremental backup. I can live with that risk.
Bottom line: With good working habits, you will be reasonably well protected. There is no need to panic.
If you really have to surf around the Internet for dubious information, do it on another PC, maybe an old, clunky secondhand one that you got almost for free. If you "must" have the material you obtain that way accessible on your main computer, use a USB stick to move the JPEGs and MP4s over.
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Thanks for this info. I am already a cautious browser and I do
backups regularly. I guess I'll get the best antivirus I can
find and soldier on!
73
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You sound very paranoid, I had Windows 7 update shut off for 3 years, I never had any malware or viruses on any of my machines.
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Member 10794313 wrote:
You sound very paranoid, I had Windows 7 update shut off for 3 years, I never had any malware or viruses on any of my machines.
Don't try this at home kids.
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You've never heard of a 0-day?
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An AV, free or not, doesn't help that much. A rigorous whitelist of things allowed to run plus, best case, no (direct) internet connection is the way to go.
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I have been using windows 7 at home without updates for 5 years.
No antivirus, but I am more or less careful, mostly execute trustable software, Steam, visual studio..
Have some security software: EMET, Simplewall
Disable unnecessary services, for speed and security.
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ZoneAlarm + Avira antivirus + very careful when browsing. I have several customers that run Windows XP machines (due to proprietary software restrictions that they use), connected to the Internet using these packages in addition to Firefox/Tor. The main element will always be good judgment and caution.
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Take a look at Sandboxie which enables one to run any program, but especially browsers in a sandbox.
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Yes! I have it and like it!
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