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flaburgantoday at 12:55 PM1 replyview on HN

I removed my dual boot in 2009, so the last windows I used on a personal computer was Vista. I switched my close family (parents and even my grand mother) to Linux years ago, nevertheless I still am the tech-savyy go-to person for other people and I am completely disconnected from what's going on the Windows world. Is an antivirus still needed there? Are there some good tools that should always be installed on a computer? The only thing I usually do is to put as many free software as I can (Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, VLC, Gimp...) But then what ?


Replies

collabstoday at 1:00 PM

Yes, antivirus is still required but as long as you have decent common sense, the built in antivirus and antimalware on Windows (sometimes known as Windows Defender or Windows Security) is good enough for most users (the only use case where I can see commercial AV solution being of any use is for compliance checklists). Chocolatey, Winget, and Scoop are all good options for installing software.

Oh and you will love Powershell 7 on Windows Terminal. It is a delight and a breath of fresh air if you ask me.