How important is antivirus software these days?

[Merneith]

@Napier

In May 2007, a faulty virus signature issued by Symantec mistakenly removed essential operating system files, leaving thousands of PCs unable to boot.[25] Also in May 2007 the executable file required by Pegasus Mail was falsely detected by Norton AntiVirus as being a Trojan and it was automatically removed, preventing Pegasus Mail from running. Norton anti-virus has falsely identified three releases of Pegasus Mail as malware, and would delete the Pegasus Mail installer file when this happens.[26] In response to this Pegasus Mail stated:
“ On the basis that Norton/Symantec has done this for every one of the last three releases of Pegasus Mail, we can only condemn this product as too flawed to use, and recommend in the strongest terms that our users cease using it in favour of alternative, less buggy anti-virus packages.[26] ”

In April 2010 McAfee VirusScan detected svchost.exe, a normal Windows binary, as a virus on machines running Windows XP with Service Pack 3, causing a reboot loop and loss of all network access.[27][28]
In December 2010, a faulty update on the AVG anti-virus suite damaged 64-bit versions of Windows 7, rendering it unable to boot, due to an endless boot loop created.[29]

So what? Every software has bugs occasionally. Sometimes catastrophic bugs. If you don’t use software because of this or that bug, you should probably stick to non-computer related activities.

I’m sure if I looked, I could find similar tales of nasty bugs in Photoshop and other Adobe products. And they’re all system hogs too. It doesn’t mean we should avoid all photo editing software and go back to doing it all by hand.

Also, in my experience, AV often interferes with various tasks like installing software and booting. Besides, it can be difficult to make work right. I have used Norton in the past, and keep hearing it’s my fault for using such a bad product. Yet last week I looked at amazon.com and found it was the top rated current AV product according to customer reviews.

Yeah. I used Norton for ages. Like, from 1995-2005. Roughly. I liked their Windows Utilities Suite, especially the registry fix program, Win Doctor, I think it was called. I used their firewall for a time, too, after Zone Alarm went to pot. I never had problems with it but I know it was a system hog in its earliest incarnations. These days, I think their AV is a pretty good but there’s just too many equally good freeware options to pay the Norton Tax. That said, they’re a reliable name with a huge install base. It’s no surprise to me that their products continue to sell good numbers.

I haven’t had any conflicts between AV & installing stuff in years. And I install & uninstall stuff almost every day (I like trying demos for games and new software options.) I think modern AV programs are less intrusive than they used to be.

I switched to Microsoft Security Essentials a few years back when I started using Vista. Well, it was called Microsoft OneCare, back then. I’m really very pleased with the program. In fact, I wish MS could just include it as part of the OS as a maintenance utility, like their defragger. I think they should do that, and it should be enabled by default, with people free to turn it off if they want a different AV set. Protecting the computer from intrusion should be a fundamental part of the OS, IMO.

[Napier]

@GuanoLad

I’m not a Mac user, but I was referring to this small, but growth, area. This is a few years old, though. Perhaps the risks have reduced since.

I don’t think this should count. There is one virus listed here, the “Macarena” virus, which is called “proof of concept code”. It is actually source code for two components from which one should be able to create a virus. I haven’t found anything saying anybody had actually done it, and none of the citations I could find were later than 2007.

If one built a virus with this code, what it should be able to do is infect Mach0 executable files (referring to a specific category of executables on OS X).

However, it only works while running Windows on the Mac, through Boot Camp, Parallels, or similar software. The news is that Windows on a Mac can alter executable files under the influence of this virus. Admittedly, this is a security flaw, as Windows should be treated as unsecure and dangerous code that runs in a sandbox, and the sandbox appears to be leaky, or at least was when this was written about.

But it’s a Windows virus.

[Khadaji]

@Czarcasm

I use Microsoft Security Essentials. It would be an inconvenience if my computer caught a virus, but it would be damn irresponsible if I allowed one to be passed to people I communicate with.

I agree. I also use MSE, because some of the others interfered with some of my development tools. My only complaint is, of all the ones I run, this one takes the longest to run a full scan (which I do once a week.)

[Napier]

@Merneith

So what? Every software has bugs occasionally. Sometimes catastrophic bugs. If you don’t use software because of this or that bug, you should probably stick to non-computer related activities.

These three examples all break the OS and prevent booting. Sure, we have to be ready to rough it now and then, but isn’t this a tad excessive? I should stick to non-computer related activities, specifically because I expect the system to boot?

[control-z]

Sure, anything can happen. But if you want to play the odds, the odds of AV software screwing your system are insignificant compared to the tens of thousands of viruses out there.

You should be running regular backups in any case, which would more or less solve the unlikely event of an AV update causing catastrophic problems.

[Raguleader]

@control-z

Sure, anything can happen. But if you want to play the odds, the odds of AV software screwing your system are insignificant compared to the tens of thousands of viruses out there.

You should be running regular backups in any case, which would more or less solve the unlikely event of an AV update causing catastrophic problems.

I’ll be honest, as soon as you starte dto say “are insignificant compared to…” I was really hoping for the sentence to end with “…the power of The Force.”

[beowulff]

I don’t run any A/V software on my Macs, and I don’t recommend it to any of my clients. Currently, the risk of contracting malware on OS X is pretty close to zero. That may change someday, and on that day I’ll re-evaluate the A/V options out there.

There are real risks associated with phishing expeditions, and so I always practice safe computing. I think those risks are far and away a bigger threat than malware on OS X.

[The_Raven_1]

I run Firefox, run Adblock Plus, and that’s about it.

Zone Alarm is very useful too, because when malware gets on your system, the very first thing is usually does is try to communicate with a server to pull down about 50 of its buddies. Zone Alarm will tell you when something is trying to make an outbound connection, and that’s your cue to start scanning with Malwarebytes or Super AntiSpyware or the like. If you can nip it in the bud, you’re much better off.

There’s also a no-script add-on for Firefox that’s incredibly useful, although it’s a bit of a pain having to opt-in to everything.

If you aren’t getting served ads and scripts can’t run you’re in pretty good shape.

As for an actual antivirus product, MSE is excellent on Win7 but I find the XP version to be a real resource hog.

Also, System Restore has saved my ass on customers machines on several occasions when the infection had hosed WinXP pretty badly.