Are there more actual threats out there these days, or is my AV software just being overzealous, flagging normal adware that isn’t really a threat?
I don’t think it’s just me because I’ve noticed that when I and other people post links to Rawstory articles in the ‘Schadenfreude’ pit thread, some other posters have claimed that they get virus warnings when they click on the link. Now, Rawstory is not the greatest journalism site, but not the worst; they basically aggregate news articles from somewhat more reputable news sites, and rewrite them with more breathless, sensationalist titles and content-- which is why they are good for the ‘Schadenfreude’ thread-- they are very ‘Schadenfreudey’ in tone. But I never got the impression in the past that the site itself is a malware spreader.
And lately, I’ve been getting warnings for sites I never have before, and would not think that I ever would. Like CNN.com. Or, just this morning, mentalfloss.com, an informational website. I got this message:
Threat secured
We’ve safely aborted connection on ad-reports-service.ad-events-prod.voltaxam-events .com because it was infected with URL:Blacklist
So, what’s up with that? For the record, my AV software is AVG.
That makes sense, but it seems like it’s happening much more often than it used to. The world of 3rd and 4th party digital advertisers must be getting sketchier. Which seems odd though, because it’s a multi-billion dollar business. You’d think digital advertisers would be extremely motivated not to have AV software flag them. When the execs in charge of digital advertising at CNN see reports of threat flags on their site, I imagine vendors are getting fired quickly.
It reminds me of something I heard years ago-- people think that visiting a porn site will give them a computer virus, but actually a site like a local church website is much more likely to spread a computer virus than a porn site. That’s because the church site is run by amateurs who make little or no money, whereas a porn site pays pros good money to handle their online security, because it’s bad for biz to be giving their customers viruses. And likewise, even flags of possible threats are going to be bad for business.
As a general rule, 3rd party anti-malware software is a con. 10-15 years ago it served a useful purpose. It’s long since been surpassed by better products already included in Microsoft’s OS. AVG may well be crying wolf a lot because it’s coming up on renewal time for your subscription and they want you to be recently reminded of all the “good” stuff they do for you.
Installing AVG put the built-in Windows Defender into a dormant mode. Uninstalling AVG and re-enabling WD will almost certainly make you more secure, less prone to false alarms, and improve your machine’s performance. And save you whatever money AVG charges.
Yes. It’s always been really sketchy, but it’s been slowly getting worse. The difference is that the big institutional systems providers were previously ignoring it because the ads were so profitable, but they’ve been forced to pull their heads out of the sand lately because it’s gotten so bad. In other words, it’s not that the problem has suddenly ramped up; what you’re seeing is much tighter security being applied in a hurry.
I do have a PC, and the fact that AVG may be crying wolf makes perfect sense, thanks.
As for ditching 3rd party AVs altogether and only using Windows Defender, I’m not so sure about that. And I mean that not as a negative connotation; I mean I’m literally not sure about doing that. There’s a lot of conflicting info out there, but from what I’ve gathered it seems that WD alone may not be enough, and can fairly easily be disabled by malware. If I do stay with a 3rd party AV, there are likely much better ones out there than AVG, but generally speaking I’d prefer an AV to err on the side of overzealousness.
I’ll just give you an anecdote to help ease your concerns. My mom is a Regular Old Lady, 73 years of age. She doesn’t have computer skills beyond what she learned working as a secretary in the late 90s/early 2000s. I myself am fairly advanced with computers/Windows. I have had her using nothing but Windows Defender since she got her laptop in 2010.
She goes about using Outlook 2003 and goes on the internet (she uses Edge now) and clicks around to who knows what. As your typical Regular Old Lady does.
MAYBE 3 times I have had to come and get rid of some annoying adware she managed to install. But there’s been nothing catastrophic, nothing crazy, nothing deeply infecting her. She’s been absolutely fine in my eyes.
So if you want to take that as a data point - if my Regular Old Lady mom can navigate the web with just Defender, I think you can do it too.
I asked my long-time computer guy about ditching Avira, which keeps trying to upsell me from the free version the shop installed, and going to Windows Defender, but he said WD has some weaknesses and I should stick with what I’ve got. I’ve had very few problems, and I go all over the Internet.
I remove the third-party AV software from any computer that anyone in my extended family buys and there hasn’t been any issues with WD. Who knows where they’re going on the internet? Old people and teens – probably the two worst demographics in terms of sites they visit.