I have NordVPN with the Threat Protection feature on and Windows Defender. Is that enough? Am i covered for the most part? Or should I still add a paid anti-virus service?
Enough for what? VPNs are not actually a defense against anything. These VPNs are just as data mining as the others.
Defender is just as good as any other paid programs out there, but common sense goes a long way.
Paid AV’s are for older people that are stuck with the ‘If it’s free, it can’t be good’ mentality.
VPN’s don’t do anything against malware and the such. What they do is mask the source of your internet requests so nobody has any clue what you are accessing besides the VPN provider. Nord is also shite, and had data leaks, which means they store data. Use Mullvad instead, they don’t store anything about you.
On the Windows defender subject, that one is enough. DO NOT install a different antivirus, paid or free. Antiviruses hog up system memory and don’t accomplish anything more than Windows Defender.
Look up virustotal. Use that to check files. If a file has a few red hits, check the details tab. If the file was first uploaded more than a few months ago, and there are below 10 hits, the program is probably fine. Otherwise I’d avoid opening it.
Also look up Sandboxie. If you want to check if something will nuke your PC when you open it even though it passed virustotal and WD, you can run it in sandboxie and with the default configuration, the malware will not affect anything else outside of the sandbox.
Yes, defender is good enough. No, NordVPN doesn’t do jack shit to prevent viruses or anything.
The only addition I would suggest alongside Windows Defender is Malwarebytes. The paid version offers some useful protection against known troublesome web sites that WD will ignore.
A VPN isn’t going to Jack, especially NordVPN junk VPN. Defender is average at best and the lowest levels of protection.
If you want a trust worthy VPN switch to Mullvad (won’t do anything to protect your system from malware as would any other VPN) in terms of Antivirus protection, Kaspersky, ESET or bitdefender are you top 3 choices for actual protection.
Enough in terms of solid protection against viruses, malware, randsomware, and browsing the web.
Would it be fair to say a VPN protects your data from being read/accessed? It defends your privacy if it were to be intercepted.
Thanks for all the information. This is very useful. I wish I had asked reddit first before getting the 2 year subscription, lol. Virustotal and sandboxie added to my vocabulary. Learned about Mullvad earlier today. Very nice.
Thanks for bringing mullvad to my attention. I hadn’t heard of it before and just finished reading up on it. Very nice option. In terms of the 3 anti-virus you mentioned, do any or all of them offer a good FREE version?
uBlock Origin + Defender + common sense.
Maybe whitelist it for YouTube as they have recently started blocking videos if you use adblockers.
No, if you’re PC is already compromised a VPN will do nothing to stop that information from being taken, VPNs don’t protect you from hackers either, nor does it shield your identity, this is why you stay away from VPN providers that promise/make absolute garbage claims.
VPN is at best good for hiding your physical IPs location, Maybe okay at protecting you against targeted ads.
No, not really. The VPN itself can fully read everything, it really only hides your data from the ISP or (public) access point you are using. Even then it is mostly pointless as most sites are now HTTPS by default encrypting your data from your ISP.
The only reason I would bother with a VPN is when using a public access point or some other unknown untrusted access point. Not for home use.
stay safe bro / brodette
Mullvad is great, it’s a no BS VPN provider with no lock in contracts, pay monthly if you so choose. Kaspersky offers a 100% free version, I use the paid version on my desktop and the free version on one of my laptops, no issues with either
What’s wrong with kaspersky? My dad uses it
Would torrenting also be a more legitimate use of a VPN?
This is why I got a snapdragon laptop so I don’t have to use public WiFi and can just use 5G instead
Kaspersky is Russian spyware. You do not want it on your system.