Do we really need them? Windows has definitely stepped up in that department and with good ad blocker and safe practices, I think you can do alright without that crap on your machine.
Odds are good someone who only visits safe sites and gets email with no attachments won’t have any use for them. However, odds are any given pc will have a sketchier lifetime and we live in an age when ad providers are actively finding workarounds to adblockers. Decent AV solutions have minimal impact on pc performance, so to me the extra layer of protection is worthwhile.
I have to disagree. Windows 10 Defender is quite effective these days and AV is just bloatware, or worse, actually spying on your machine.
I concur.
No sweat off my back - you asked a question that apparently you already had found your answer for. My mistake for not noticing it was rhetorical.
I guess it was. I thought it was general accept that AV software was just shovel ware for the uninitiated and that the Kaspersky was the final nail in the coffin for people on the fence.
If I get a computer, the first thing I do is delete AV software before it can break my machine as AVG did.
Well, Defender is antivirus. It just becomes a question of who you want to handle it. Defender isn’t bad, but others can be better. The av that comes bundled most often tends to not be the better solutions, so I’d uninstall those as well.
Kaspersky admits that they indeed lift the software from the NSA contractor’s computer, but the say it’s not their fault!!!
Even if it was true, they’re screwed regardless. The company is toast.
Except not really, since they’re just an arm of the FSB.
They’ll just be reallocated to other stuff. Financial success was’t really the purpose.
Oh, I don’t think that’s true at all. My feeling is Kaspersky is a real independent company, making high-quality software for a global marketplace. Unfortunately they’re located in Russian Federation, and when the GRU comes to your door asking for “assistance” you just can’t say no. Unless you like the taste of Polonium.
Nah, Kapersky was recruited by the FSB when he was a child, literally. He went to one of their training academies when he was young. He’s been involved with them for his entire adult life.
There’s no proven link there. Lots of former intelligence operatives become businessmen. Really both stories are perfectly plausible.
The disconcerting part of this story is that an NSA employee stored classified data on his home computer and turned off his AV software to install pirated software on that same PC. If true, NSA hiring standards are pretty low.
Former FSB agents are FSB agents. Especially the rich ones.
Or they die from polonium poisoning.
It’s not like it’s intelligence agencies. You don’t just retire.
Yeah, I guess it’s different there. Could be.
This was a big hole that has now been patched by 6 companies, including Malwarebytes. TLDR: AV quarantines a suspicious file, but there was a security hole that then tricked the AV into moving the suspicious file into the Windows folder.
This seems relevant and fun.
US government networks and computers are an open book, at this point.