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I have no anti-virus product installed and have no problems either. I guess it's about whoever falls for the marketing..
I would say you are very lucky. Malicious stuff is all over the Internet. We had this discussion several years ago when somebody came in here and said all you had to do was stay away from porn and piracy sites and everything would be fine.
In my experience that is not the case. I saw two specific cases where we KNOW without a doubt that the infection came from government web sites, where you'd reasonably assume they had proper and adequate protections in place.
That being said, pick an AV program and an anti-malware program. Use them both.
It's certainly widely known that viruses and malware is developed with the goal of distributing it in the most effective way. Pornography and piracy on the internet is very popular, no doubt about it, which is why these people try to get them out there. However, of course, not always the case. Being aware of the software, especially known executables you're accepting to run, can make a huge difference. Anything, and really anything that is widely used will have exploits and become sensitive towards malicious software. Java and OpenSSL have had numerous security exploits which have been used to distribute malware. In the same way, Windows machines are widely used and therefore will always be more vulnerable than other machines, per se, OSX or Linux. Let's leave it at that, without arguing which one is better.
The main problem is not about having or not having protection, but instead considering ways in which products are not working properly. There are many anti-virus programs, but most of them use the same scanning engine, which means that more than (most) of them fail once any malware or a virus has entered a network or computer. Of course, there are exceptions, but it's not my money financing companies who make a fortune off of my fear.
The next thing is that virus / maleware scanners can easily be manipulated by changing values with a Hex editor of a given executable. The engine is, despite good marketing, very bad at detecting signatures saved in their huge databases. This allows for even the simplest intrusions, and by far the most widely used programs which I will not name, to get through. The million dollar question is obviously how security software can prevent even the most sophisticated viruses and malware?
Another interesting point you made is about government websites. What does it tell you about anti-virus / anti-malware programs if government websites already have intruders?
Looking at it from another perspective, I don't have anything to hide on my computer. My bank account will always be safe, unless you consider Amazon purchases, even though I can simply call my credit card and always request for a transaction to be cancelled and report it as fraud, and also request a cancellation of my orders, since Amazon saves personal data such as IPs. My passwords? There is nothing to steal and I don't have any memberships or products I'm currently using that could be at risk in case I have a keylogger installed without my personal knowledge. In fact, you can always check your processes for an unknown executable. There is no way for a process not to show up, so that problem is solved. My personal files? Pictures? I'm old school, plus my pictures are also on numerous CDs and USBs.
The bottom line is that even in the worst case, I have nothing to be scared of and nothing to lose. In fact, if you look at Kaspersky's YouTube channel, they even admit these are simple security measures every user should consider to maximize computer safety.
In conclusion, I have no reason to praise these companies and no reason to completely bash them for their efficiency. I guess there is no legal issue with offering an "Anti-Virus" program, since there is never a guarantee your computer will be safe. If you want the safest computer, have multiple virtual machines running on top of a linux machine, one with and one without an internet connection. Unless someone is somewhat willing to steal your data (you already have backed up), spend the time developing some kind of executable (you can always decline to run) capable of penetrating through two virtual machines, you should be fine with this method.
Him is me and this is not a Win8 thread. Personally I don't like it for a computer and downloading Classic Shell makes it look like win7 and easier to work with.
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