Superfish was an https breaking adware the was shipped with some Lenovo gear. It was a bear to get rid of. I just meant it as a concrete example. You're approach is best. I can't afford it, tech is very expensive over here :cry:. I go the VM route for security.
I have yet to find commercial PCs with exact same specs as making it yourself as more expensive anywhere. Unless on a heavy sale 50% + Even if I was to get a commercial machine (like laptops a few years ago). I would format it and install a clean OS myself.
I used ESET on my last computer (paid for it). And it worked great. Got a new computer a year ago and got lazy. I relied on Windows Defender the last year. Finally re-bought ESET and installed it last night. Windows Defender never told me I had a problem, ESET found 9 problems and either cleaned or quarantined them. yes NINE problems Windows Defender never caught! Windows Defender is a piece of junk! I will never get lazy and let my ESET expire again. I also found it dodgy that you can't easily turn off Windows Defender permanently. I had to do a lot of googling to find out how to turn it off. There isn't simply a button or two you can use that will permanently turn it off. That ticked me off. I hadn't done any high risk behaviors on this new computer either. On my last computer, I engaged in one high risk behavior and ESET always protected me. Something I will be doing again now that I have it protecting my new computer. I am not a techie, but I was listening to a techie show on the radio and they always raved about ESET. And my old computer had been infected due to a bad anti-virus program (can't remember what it was) and my repair guy had also recommended it. That is why I originally went with that program. I also looked at reviews of programs last night while my scans were running. ESET is always in the top tier of recommendations.
Are you sure they weren't just false positives? I get a lot that are detected as "viruses" depending on heuristics level, but I know exactly what those files are and what they do.
Sure? No. I am not a techie person, so I can't be sure. But I doubt they were all false positives. I looked at the 5 quarantined items. 4 seem to be unnecessary/ suspicious applications. I am guessing adware or something along those lines. The other one said multiple threats. The other 4 were cleaned completely, so I can't review them. At least not to my knowledge.
Yes usually a lot of add ons or things you get with free software can install or be detected as a virus or malware.
That would actually be a good idea given the rather open nature of the Google Play. Is it their duty? Personally I think it is actually. I think it's reasonable in to days world to expect an OS developer or indeed any software developer to take sometime to prevent their software from being abused in that way. They certainly don't hold back when implementing DRM. If I'm paying for a license to use the software I expect it to be reasonably secure. Why would I want to pay for something that is advertised as being secure but actually leaves me exposed? And indeed the likes of Microsoft and Google have made a great deal of fuss about how secure their operating systems are.
