Tuesday, July 3rd 2007

Symantec Claims 80% of all gamers are Infected by malware

Or, at least 80% of all gamers that attended DreamHack Summer 2007. Symantec went around the LAN party, and found that 80% of all gamers there were either infected by malware, or previously had been infected by malware. Symantec claims that the reason the infection rate among hardcore gamers is so high is quite simple. When gamers start practicing/gaming, they turn off their anti-virus programs in order to maximize performance. While this makes sense during the game, as the risk for getting infected while playing a game is very low, most gamers neglect to re-activate the protection of a good anti-virus program.

Symantec claims that with their Norton 360 software, there is no need to worry about this, as their anti-virus solution is designed to encumber performance as little as possible while still providing optimal protection.
Source: Nordic Hardware
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27 Comments on Symantec Claims 80% of all gamers are Infected by malware

#1
wazzledoozle
I bet they counted tracking cookies as "malware". :rolleyes:
Posted on Reply
#2
zekrahminator
McLovin
:laugh: If tracking cookies were malware, I'd be up to my eyeballs in spyware :p.
Posted on Reply
#3
Jonnycat
wazzledoozleI bet they counted tracking cookies as "malware". :rolleyes:
Hehe, that is exactly what I was thinking.
Posted on Reply
#5
MarcusTaz
"Symantec claims that with their Norton 360 software, there is no need to worry about this, as their anti-virus solution is designed to encumber performance as little as possible while still providing optimal protection."

Norton not use up resources?? Common what a joke... I use avast free verison any day over that bloatware....
Posted on Reply
#6
WarEagleAU
Bird of Prey
I was going to say the same thing Wazz.
Posted on Reply
#7
DaMulta
My stars went supernova
I haven't ran any kind of virus destroyer on my system in a few years. I have found them pointless with smart Internet practices
Posted on Reply
#8
MarcusTaz
DaMultaI haven't ran any kind of virus destroyer on my system in a few years. I have found them pointless with smart Internet practices
very true, since my last reinstall of vista I have not reinstalled avast. But the home edition for free is a good product...
Posted on Reply
#9
OnBoard
Kaspersky is nice in that it doesn't try to update signatures while processor usage is high. Nothing worse than some update kicking in while playing on net :) And don't mind it taking 5megs of memory and games run fine. Everything else (programs) is on manual update or program start. *scanning for those 5 "malwares" I usually find what wazzledoozle mentioned* :)

edit: oh noes, 54 infections found! (54 tracking cookies).
Posted on Reply
#10
tkpenalty
well i reinstalled zone alarm and I only had gamespy being detected as spyware... that was it. Nice try norton but we enthusiasts are different to those so called "Gamers" who have dells, HP, etc preloaded with crap.
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#11
FOXCONN1115
well said TK. couldn't have nailed it on the head any better myself
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#12
tkpenalty
Also, upon installing antiviruses, games froze all the time, not because of my PSU, crappy boxes popped up and then next thing i knew when i was back I had failed a quest I spent an hour on.
Posted on Reply
#13
Frederik S
Norton is the worst Anti virus for a gamer its memory footprint is huge and it uses resources all the time when you write to a disk. McAfee Enterprise versions on the other hand is the way to go minimal memory usage and customizable scanning technique. The only problem with it is that it is for advanced users only.
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#14
Ketxxx
Heedless Psychic
I use AVG free edition, kicks the crap out of that bloatware known as symmantec. AVG also happens to do a much better job than symmantech for free, it would seem irony isnt without a sence of humor, something free doing a far better job than something you have to pay for :D
Posted on Reply
#15
HellasVagabond
Symantec ? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha......Should i say more ? :P
Posted on Reply
#16
little geek
i use zonealarm pro i dont bother with antivirus simply because noone else uses my machine and i only go on sites that are safe if theyre not safe i i use my mums pc instead but if i do ge a virus i just format as all my games and stuff are on seperate drives
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#17
hotrippr
AVG Free+ spybot S&D+CrapCleaner+Panda free online scan+Outpost firewall=clean. ZA was good but now is meh. I use the emule and get malicious files all the time and havent been infected in years since my protection setup. I like the AVG messages in Gmail on attatchments it lets me know that it is a virus or not, have been happy with AVG for a few years now. Symantic is for the masses. I got a virus with symantec along time ago I used AVG to find it and kill it. I would say you need to have at least 2 solutions one on your machine and a DIFFERENT on line scan to cross reference any missing virus from a companys db.
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#19
15th Warlock
wazzledoozleI bet they counted tracking cookies as "malware". :rolleyes:
qft :toast:
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#20
Grings
Symantec have actually made a lot of changes so it dosent guzzle resources anymore, seems this thread is evidence that once you (as a company) get a bad name for whatever reason, it can take a good while to lose it again, and no i dont use norton, i use avg, its just that ive read a few write ups on the new norton(or 360, or whatever they call it now) saying it has one of the LOWEST resource overheads of current a/v products
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#22
waspman3372
Since I work on software related issues for friends and I see they have Norton I just shake my head and continue to uninstall and get them Avast.The only problem with Avast is the scanner is sloooooow.But other than that pretty descent.As for spyware related issures I use XOFTSPY SE.Very quick and thorough.Takes less than 5 minutes to scan 140,000 pieces(files)and in some cases will find viruses.Very good program!!So far not too impressed with the AD-AWARE 2007 free edition,maybe Im just not use to it yet. WASPMAN

Would NEVER SUGGEST anyone to get Norton!!
Posted on Reply
#23
Tau
zekrahminatorOr, at least 80% of all gamers that attended DreamHack Summer 2007. Symantec went around the LAN party, and found that 80% of all gamers there were either infected by malware, or previously had been infected by malware. Symantec claims that the reason the infection rate among hardcore gamers is so high is quite simple. When gamers start practicing/gaming, they turn off their anti-virus programs in order to maximize performance. While this makes sense during the game, as the risk for getting infected while playing a game is very low, most gamers neglect to re-activate the protection of a good anti-virus program.

Symantec claims that with their Norton 360 software, there is no need to worry about this, as their anti-virus solution is designed to encumber performance as little as possible while still providing optimal protection.

Source: Nordic Hardware
To bad they dont have any worthwhile software isent it?

I find that hard to beleave though.

On the other hand if i was using Norton anything i would turn it off before doing anything anyways :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#25
Darkrealms
Norton = bloatware (Hostoricly proven)

I 4th or 5th the cookies really don't count.

Hardcore gamers . . . ofcourse most of them have something weird that has been on their system, we are always trying mods and tweaks. From my experience the more hardcore the more likely the system is formated/reinstalled at least twice a year do to new tweak attempts, hardware updates, etc. Chances are of the hardcore people there a third of them had fairly fresh systems.
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