this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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No way they can be the same.
The adblock stops malware, makes my browser perform better, and stops things from disrupting me. The most common result of anti-virus the complete opposite of each of those 3.
I cannot express how much I loathe antivirus software. Mostly it's been because it has been nothing but trouble in my work environment, without ever catching anything, for over twenty years. It's the modern corporate snake oil.
Good for you. If your company is regularly the target of industrial espionage and your coworkers have a hard time detecting phishing mails, you're happy to have a good AV suite as a further security measure.
Yes, I'm well aware security is a team sport. All it takes is one person to make a mistake, once. I still remember that the Iloveyou virus penetrated our network back when I was in university, through the Unix lecturer...
Still fucking annoying though.
Although I do realise most of my annoyance comes from shitty configuration and poor human decisions. Oh, let's run a full deep scan at 15:00 everywhere Friday. It's not like the students will need to use those machines during their Comp. Science lab, right?
simple, don't use an antivirus, stick to windows defender (before the linux crowd comes in yes I know there are basically no viruses threatening you chill), your own brain, and also not an admin account!
Don't download shady shit, and if your PC asks you for some mysterious admin permission - the answer is "no". If something does slip through windows defender will most likely handle it no problem!
Ugh Linux... I tried so hard to get viruses working in wine but in the end I gave up. Full compatibility my ass...
Linux gets viruses too (see recent xz-utils vulnerability that almost got into production environments) and its kind of a shame that corporate antivirus software like Norton and McAfee end up ruining the reputation of antiviruses. In theory the idea of having a software that can scan for common viruses is a great way to increase security, even if it shouldn't replace common sense. I'm not too sure if there are any good FOSS antiviruses, but if there aren't there should be.
ClamAV is the Linux antivirus library I'm most familiar with.
I used to have it on my Raspberry Pi to test some shady files. Besides of the Linux thing, they'd also need to get around the fact I was running things on AArch64, which is a rare combination. Maybe Windows on AArch64 would have been an even safer choice.
we'll never be a 100% safe, no matter what OS we use. We can't defend ourselves against backdoors and newly abused vulnerabilities in any meaningful way
That's partially my point. You can never be 100% safe, but there's a lot you can do to increase your safety besides just relying on intuition (edit: because intuition is usually the weakest link, see social engineering/phishing tactics). Anti viruses (when they aren't just bloatware) are part of that.
Your second point about not meaningfully defending against backdoors and vulnerabilities is kind of against the point. You can totally defend against backdoors by not giving apps admin privileges, limiting network access, etc. so that damage can be limited even if an exploit happens. Then, if some backdoor or exploit is discovered, it's only as dangerous as the permissions you give that app.
oh i meant backdoors and vulnerabilities in the OS itself, hah, i'm pretty sure the system has all the permissions