Anti virus..... what one ?

I use Avast and it seems to work ok without causing too many issues.

Again, I use Avast with the shields I don't need turned off and it is no different on my machine audio wise than not using it at all. AVG and Norton are hogs though.

Maybe I'm the exception that proves the rule, but I haven't had any sort of active antivirus software running on any machine for many years. Nor a software firewall, as of late, for that matter.

As a computer technician and enthusiast I tend to shy away from processes that chew up clock cycles unnecessarily, and those processes include most if not all security applications. In my humble opinion security is more a matter or *regular maintenance* and *common sense* than anything else.


In fact, in the last eight or ten years, sticking to my common-sense-and-maintenance regimen I can report exactly zero malware-related problems. The computer I'm typing at now (a general-purpose machine with an E2140, 2GB RAM and XP SP3) still boots up and responds like it did the day I built it. My previous general purpose desktop ran perfectly for six years straight until it died from traumas related to overseas shipping, poor thing.


Common sense precautions include things like:
• Thinking twice before clicking on links on a web page or email or chat window.
• Turning off Autoplay so that Windows doesn't blindly execute the autorun.inf when you mount a drive
• Using a VM or a "sandbox" machine to try out new or unfamiliar software or run shady executables.

I also keep handy, as a safety net, a ghost image of my system partition in optimal configuration. In my experience if/when one *does* pick up an infection it can take  longer to thoroughly clean it out than it would to just restore the partition image and start fresh. It's come in handy a number of times (although not on my machines).

That said, I actually *do* have an anitvirus program on my machines but as a "portable" app that's not installed and not constantly running in the background. I use ClamWin portable and I run the executable on-demand only when I need to scan a particular file or group of files.

Same goes for other TSR scanners like SuperAntiSpyware, Spybot, etc.  By all means have them handy and run them once in a while but, for the love of DAW, there's no need for them to monitor every I/O operation.

Piyono


p.s. Out of curiousity, while typing this post I ran SuperAntiSpyware for the first time in months. Came up as clean as you could want for any working system. One "trojan" alert but I investigated and it was negligible.

MS Essentials and Eset do not "chew up" CPU
 and the little an AV might is a moot point as far as power is concerned.
the issues with AV is DPC spiking that has to do with ACPI

again Essentials an Eset do not have this issue.

i do not recommend being on the internet without.
but Piyono makes some very valid points about common sense.

Norrie just get MS Essentials its free.

Just a small point I'd mention. MS essentials is excellent , but when you install it, it will run a OS validation. 

I go with your idea of a DAW that does not go on the net and a second cheap netbook for web stuff. Just scan everything that's headed for the DAW. I have not installed AV in both my DAWS for 10 years. If you are not (stupid) careless you should not ever need it.
AVG sucks, Avast is good but tends to update even when you shut it off.  I now use MS essentials on both my office and netbook machines,  been invisible so far. 

All 8 computers in the house, including the music computer, are connected to the router, and the internet. 4 have AV software, 4 do not. I have had 3 virus infections in 20 years. None on the computers without AV.

Spybot is on the four computer with AV, 2 are used by the kids, mine, and the wife's.

The only programs that auto-update are the AV programs. I never let windows auto-update. And I always install hardware updates separately.

I update windows on ALL computers at least weekly. And occasionally scan with spybot, and with the kaspersky av removal tool. Rarely find anything.

Currently using MS essentials on main office computer, others are using various free porgrams: avast, avg,... The music computer has no AV. I often visit these forums with the music computer when in need of info.

Major NO NO: do not set the mouse to automatically move to the default button. I am sure a number of clients got infected because of this cleverly-stupid feature.

J