Just do not click or download anything fishy,

Thats the thing- HOW do you know whats "fishy"? Good sites can be hijacked through ads! People have had virus alerts even from this site in the past.

This simply means that gamedev is also a fishy site, don't mix what you'd consider fishy for browsing and what's fishy for running code on your computer, only download programs from their own websites, if you need to download maya demo, download it from autodesk's website, if you need to download avast, download it from avast's website, if you need to download visual studio follow links from Microsoft.com etc, that's the easiest way not to download crap, additionally if you want to be safe don't run any unsigned installer or installers signed by a company other than the one the product is from.

The thing is you don't even need to download "fishy" Malware. Lenovo, Dell and Toshiba have all been stung in the past for selling brand new laptops that have had pre installed bloatware that was already infected.

Don't mix bloatware with virus here, typically stuff you don't need comes preinstalled in demo versions yes, it's a tradeoff, it's also what makes decent computers so cheap, if you don't want of it you simply reinstall a clean Windows over or uninstall them, but this has nothing to do with antiviruses which is the topic's title, specially since in most case there's at least 1 antivirus in the bundle. . .

You don't know where malware and hackers are.

Get that?

Some websites are safe, but even most of the "safe" ones will be hacked and compromised numerous times eventually.

Just do the easy basics is what I wrote above there. How is that "worrying about it" ? It is not.

Some people have not paid attention to the news over the last 18 months. In 2014 there was a real explosion in hacking and malware attacks in the USA. Many millions of people had their bank account, credit card numbers, and other critical information obtained thru their own device.

Just do not click or download anything fishy,

Thats the thing- HOW do you know whats "fishy"? Good sites can be hijacked through ads! People have had virus alerts even from this site in the past.

This simply means that gamedev is also a fishy site, don't mix what you'd consider fishy for browsing and what's fishy for running code on your computer, only download programs from their own websites, if you need to download maya demo, download it from autodesk's website, if you need to download avast, download it from avast's website, if you need to download visual studio follow links from Microsoft.com etc, that's the easiest way not to download crap, additionally if you want to be safe don't run any unsigned installer or installers signed by a company other than the one the product is from.

The thing is you don't even need to download "fishy" Malware. Lenovo, Dell and Toshiba have all been stung in the past for selling brand new laptops that have had pre installed bloatware that was already infected.

Don't mix bloatware with virus here, typically stuff you don't need comes preinstalled in demo versions yes, it's a tradeoff, it's also what makes decent computers so cheap, if you don't want of it you simply reinstall a clean Windows over or uninstall them, but this has nothing to do with antiviruses which is the topic's title, specially since in most case there's at least 1 antivirus in the bundle. . .

I'm not confusing bloatware with malware at all. I know what bloatware is. What I am saying is that the bloatware that was pre packaged with the OS on brand new laptops was infected with viruses or ransomware.

What checks can one do to ensure protection against this kind of malware masking ?
Automatic anti-virus and anti-spyware definition updating is the best way to prevent such an attack. Do at least a quick scan once per day and preferably a full scan every day. I recommend starting it as soon as you awake in the morning. By the time you are done getting breakfast and other activities, then a long scan would probably be done. Also, do not leave your computer connected to the internet when you are not using it. Do not visit risky websites such as adult only ones.

I strongly disagree with that. If it makes you feel safer, sure, use one of the available anti-virus programs. However, you should never ever need them. If they ever catch something about to execute which is clearly not a false positive, you have already failed extremely badly and what you really need is to overthink how things could come this far.

Where did I download that and why did I think it would be a good idea to execute it? How could something even start to execute just because I visited a web page? All of these issues suggest a severe failure on your part before anti virus came even into play. No software should be able to start executing on your system just because. If it does, the battle is already lost. Anti virus software might be able to save the day but you can never be sure if something it did not recognize did not get through.

The only point were anti virus software could have a legitimate use is with zero-day exploits. But first, chances are good whatever exploit is delivered by them is also not recognized by your anti virus software until later and second, zero-day exploits are not that common (provided you avoid the usual candidates, like Flash).

Start with this (mentioned earlier): www.malwarebytes.com It is free and not running all the time (unless you pay for it and use the resident version). It will take care of most of the malware issues.

Next I would at least run this: http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/ Eset has a scanner and remover available for free that is basically meant to do a one time scan and remove. It should at least help to make sure you got anything malwarebytes didn't get.

Then I would invest in something. Avast, AVG, and Microsoft's are free, but you tend to get what you pay for. I use Kaspersky and have had good luck with them. If you watch for deals at various stores, you can usually end up getting something good for free after mail in rebates.

You don't know where malware and hackers are.

Get that?

Some websites are safe, but even most of the "safe" ones will be hacked and compromised numerous times eventually.

Just do the easy basics is what I wrote above there. How is that "worrying about it" ? It is not.

Some people have not paid attention to the news over the last 18 months. In 2014 there was a real explosion in hacking and malware attacks in the USA. Many millions of people had their bank account, credit card numbers, and other critical information obtained thru their own device.

I do very much know my subject thank you, and it's worrying about it when it takes you time, launching a scan daily and disconecting from the net are 2 painful and absolutely useless things, i gave the basics of computer security, you gave the basics of useless actions that make you feel safe. Typically if a daily scan finds something one day that it didn't find the day before, you screwed up because it should've found it in real time scanning at the moment it happened, morehower this is something that you need to deal with proactively, not reactively, as as soon as your system is infected you can by definition never be truly sure about it being clean, it's all about who's better at hiding itself, the virus or the antivirus.

Start with this (mentioned earlier): www.malwarebytes.com It is free and not running all the time (unless you pay for it and use the resident version). It will take care of most of the malware issues.

Next I would at least run this: http://www.eset.com/us/online-scanner/ Eset has a scanner and remover available for free that is basically meant to do a one time scan and remove. It should at least help to make sure you got anything malwarebytes didn't get.

Then I would invest in something. Avast, AVG, and Microsoft's are free, but you tend to get what you pay for. I use Kaspersky and have had good luck with them. If you watch for deals at various stores, you can usually end up getting something good for free after mail in rebates.

You get what you pay for but they also need to make feel like you do, i found paid antiviruses are more intrusive system wide to give a better impression of protection, that's not so bad but that's overkill and tends to cause more system issues related to the AV itself (i had 2 distinct people with Kaspersky who where all happy about buying it but called me for 2 distinct computer issues a year or so appart, in both case an uninstall of Kaspersky fixed their issue, in both case the issue didn't seem to have anything to do with Kaspersky to begin with and nothing else explained it).

What checks can one do to ensure protection against this kind of malware masking ?
Automatic anti-virus and anti-spyware definition updating is the best way to prevent such an attack. Do at least a quick scan once per day and preferably a full scan every day. I recommend starting it as soon as you awake in the morning. By the time you are done getting breakfast and other activities, then a long scan would probably be done. Also, do not leave your computer connected to the internet when you are not using it. Do not visit risky websites such as adult only ones.

I strongly disagree with that. If it makes you feel safer, sure, use one of the available anti-virus programs. However, you should never ever need them. If they ever catch something about to execute which is clearly not a false positive, you have already failed extremely badly and what you really need is to overthink how things could come this far.

Where did I download that and why did I think it would be a good idea to execute it? How could something even start to execute just because I visited a web page? All of these issues suggest a severe failure on your part before anti virus came even into play. No software should be able to start executing on your system just because. If it does, the battle is already lost. Anti virus software might be able to save the day but you can never be sure if something it did not recognize did not get through.

The only point were anti virus software could have a legitimate use is with zero-day exploits. But first, chances are good whatever exploit is delivered by them is also not recognized by your anti virus software until later and second, zero-day exploits are not that common (provided you avoid the usual candidates, like Flash).

Exactly, people feel like there are dozens of different threats but they don't see those threats have only 2 point of entry categories, user with sufficient rights screwed up, or software exploit, nothing more and nothing less, and that's where the battle should be fought, people fighting it further down the road have lost, they just mitigate damage.

I follow these principles, my computer has no AV, is connected 24/7 (literally, it's not setup to go to sleep except for the screen), is being used actively 12 to 18 hours a day, no single infection in the past 5 years . . .

Old neighboor clicking everything including "your computer is locked, click here to unlock it type adds), has an antivirus and antispyware, calls me for rootkit removal about 4 times a year . . .

The only point were anti virus software could have a legitimate use is with zero-day exploits. But first, chances are good whatever exploit is delivered by them is also not recognized by your anti virus software until later and second, zero-day exploits are not that common (provided you avoid the usual candidates, like Flash).

This is the only point I'll disagree somewhat on. There are definitely exploitable vulnerabilities in all major browsers, and in many cases an anti-virus program will catch them easily based on their heuristic algorithms. The odds of running into one of these is low, but if you're willing to go to all of the trouble of keeping everything up to date, disabling browser plugins, etc. then there's really no reason not to use anti-virus software as well.

then there's really no reason not to use anti-virus software as well.

.

Slows everything down to a crawl.