I have both Adware MalwareBytes and Avast on my laptop. They do not interfere with each other and I have been protected from a lot of potential malwares. I rarely download online directly from a site. The ones I usually download are games from steam. If you do download something, better check the permissions and do not allow the bundles software with your download. You will get a pop up with that.
It's always a healthy practice to download only from the companies that you trust, like Intel or Google. Before running any downloaded .exe file or the like, run it through a scan first. As for those software that aren't very popular, search for some opinions on them in trusted forums or even sites like Reddit. If they're anywhere useful, they're usually talked about on there.
It's absolutely useless to have more than one antivirus software on your PC. More often than not it's actually detrimental to both your PC's performance and the scanning.
I had that happen to me before but luckily I have a really kick ass anti virus program which wiped and blocked every trace of pop up in my system. I personally hate those softwares which oddly enough I get most from sites that are legitimate. I rarely get those adware when I'm downloading stuff from torrent sites.
I always run a virus scan whenever I'm about to open a file, and so far, as much as I download torrents, I haven't encountered a single malevolent virus that has infected my pc to the point that it malfunctioned. I guess the key to avoid such incidents is to always scan the file first before opening it.
Usually the problem isn't the actual downloading of random free software online. Sure, if you can get it from a trusted source, go for it, but most programs are safe. However, you should always do a virustotal scan AND have MalwareBytes running with a real (but not annoying) antivirus. Also, run the program in Sandboxie or a VM/VPS if the program is really suspicious. Overall, it's all about common sense.
You need to be really careful when in the downloading process to uncheck the various boxes that will add toolbars or change your search engine. These files can contain malware and PUP's (potentially unwanted programs) that are notoriously difficult to remove. They will take over your search engine and direct you to useless links rather than the web site you intended to visit. I have had to wipe my hard drive before due to a piece of malware that no removal program or other process would get rid of. Always custom install software so you can check carefully what you are agreeing to in the download.
Whoever created these malwares should be ashamed of themselves. They're forcing their shady products on individuals who have no intention of buying them from the outset. I recently had trouble removing a program I accidentally installed as plugin to my browser. It was actually an ad malware specifically created for an online shop. The shop's ads popped up in every website I visited or redirected me to their site. I had to go through the hassle of re-installing Firefox just to remove that malware.
I have Kaspersky Internet Security installed in my laptop, and thanks to it, I am not having any issues with my computer. It would tell me right away if there's malicious content that might harm my computer. And yes, we should be very careful on what we're downloading over the internet, who knows, it could be a virus.
Fortunately I always know how to fix this kind of problem Back when I had windows it would be a nightmare if anything ever got on my computer either by downloading or from a malicious site, but I worked with computers a lot and was even a computer technician at school. Now that I am using Linux I really don't worry too much about it, I am still weary of what I download though.
