Re: Is AV software necessary?

From: D.Currie (dmbcurrie.nospam_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 05/26/04 

Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 11:25:21 -0600

"john" <john@nospam.uk> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.05.26.10.34.35.418768@nospam.uk...
> For some time I've been questioning the use of AV software. I work in IT
> support and I really couldn't count the number of perfectly good Windows
> installations I've seen borked by Norton AV or any of the other bloated
> virus suites. The performance hit from installing these things with
> always-on protection is lamentable, both in terms of boot up time and the
> general responsiveness of the OS, and for what?
>
> Thesedays, viruses spread faster than the AV companies could hope to
> spread updated virus definitions. So for a critical length of time, AV
> software is completely powerless to protect your system when any
> particular worm or virus is at its peak on the Internet.
>
> AV has disappeared from my home machines and - guess what? - no viruses.
> This is because
>
> (1) I login to the systems as a limited user, not the administrator
> (2) I don't open email attachments
> (3) I don't download, install or run software from disreputable websites
> (4) I don't use IE or OE - these programs are virus distribution clients
> (5) I use an ADSL firewall router and not an ADSL modem
>
> My opinion is that AV software fixes nothing that common sense couldn't
> fix. Common sense has the additional advantage that it doesn't turn my
> 512MB P4 system into a 64MB P2 with an endlessly grinding hard disk.
>
> Nevertheless, at work, I still have to deal with the endless problems
> caused by AV software. I still have to knowingly cripple nice, clean
> installations by installing Norton bloatware. I still have to mess around
> ensuring that the AV definitions are up-to-date, even though essentially
> they will always be out of date when it really matters.
>
> Is AV software necessary? IMO, no. It should be avoided like the plague.
>

AV software may not be necessary IF you can operate your computer in a
completely risk-free manner. But some people can't (or won't).

For instance, I know better than to open attachments from strangers, but it
wasn't that long ago that I found a Word macro virus embedded in a document
I was expecting from a known source. Without AV software, I wouldn't have
known about the virus. There's no way I can get around opening those sorts
of files unless I have people mail the documents to me, and I retype them,
or scan and OCR them, and I'm not about to start doing that.

That's an example that might apply to common users. But even more critical
for me is that I repair other people's computers, and there are plenty of
times when I have to attach their hard drive to my test machine (to copy
files off of a non-booting drive, for instance) and there have been plenty
of times that my AV software has alerted to viruses on their drive.

And although plenty of people claim that they never open attachments, etc.,
I clean off a lot of viruses, and I can pretty much guarantee that the
majority of those computers either don't have AV software or they have
expired AV software. The rare one with up-to-date software usually comes in
with the complaint that they know they have a virus, but they just can't get
rid of it, and those will usually have one virus as opposed to the multitude
that are on the unprotected computers.

If you know enough about computers, you'll know what processes are supposed
to be running, what seems suspicious, and how to protect your computer. But
most users don't know any of that. They install "free" software that's laden
with spyware, they click on attachments because it came from a friend, and
they have no interest in learning any better. So AV software provides a
necessary layer of protection.

Oh yeah...and you probably have your files backed up so that if something
sneaks in, you can reformat your drive and start over without much pain.
Most people have no idea what they'd do if they had to start over.