 MoracCat god
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ
kudos:1
 ·Comcast
| Sometimes I wonder why we even use AV products I've basically used Norton for the last 10+ years (yes I'm masochistic  ) and in that time frame the only virus Norton reported was Second Life (false positive obviously). Other than that there have been no viruses on my machine, mainly because I don't download and run every program and mail attachment out there.
Actually the only program I've experience on my machine that displays virus like tendencies is Norton itself when it slows down my machine or causes other program that access the Internet to hang.
Add to this the new study that says AV programs don't work all that well and I sometimes I wonder why I bother at all since all it takes is one virus to slip through.
I will mention that I don't run any AV program on an old machine of mine, but then I only use it maybe an hour a month (to upgrade Windows). It runs really fast.
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 tcp1Premium
join:2000-04-17
Herndon, VA
 ·Verizon FiOS
| I agree with you in part, but for other reasons.
The entire virus threat is truly BS, in my opinion.
I've been "online" downloading stuff since 1984.
That's 24 years almost now; my data has not been affected by a single virus, trojan, worm, or other "malware" - AV software or not.
Pretend all you want that there are these vast internet mafias out there and that your data's at constant risk from these multitude of viruses and trojans; it just simply is NOT TRUE.
Yes, they cost companies money - by eating up resources. That's about the only true "virus risk" out there.
Half the time when I hear of peoples' machines being "wiped out by viruses", they clearly aren't.. People love to mistake a hardware failure or their own ineptness for a "virus". |
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MoracCat god
join:2001-08-30
Riverside, NJ
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Comcast
| Well I do think some people need AV software. For example the guy who came to me for help because his machine wasn't working after he installed an AV program. The reason it stopped working was because nearly every file on his system was infected with multiple virii. One of the virii changed the Windows registry so that it ran the virii any time an .exe or .com file was executed. The AV program wiped the virus which basically made the computer unusable.
I asked the guy how he managed to get so many virii on his machine and he said he downloads pirated software from bitTorrent and other file sharing networks. This is a person who needed a AV program (though installed it to late).
For the average user, they most likely would never need a AV program. I think of AV programs like buying insurance. Chances are you'll never use it, but it's nice to know it's there. Of course with AV programs, if they don't work then you're not really insured are you.
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