Anti Virus Scam

Screen Shot 2015-01-16 at 8.31.24 PMIt’s a never ending supply of business for me. The more people use their Windows computers – the more money that I make. Before any other “tech warriors” out there decide to comment – let me explain the reality of “our” business. If I had to survive working on Macs, my family and I would starve. Period.

You can give me all the “windows is the target because of market share” crap all you want. While that may be true, Windows is inherently more insecure than OSX. No, Mac users are usually NOT more tech savvy either. Remember, I make my living supporting Windows, OSX, and Linux. But I digress.

Does anti-virus help? Nope.

I have blogged about this incessantly dating back to 2008 (and even earlier on various message boards). The EXACT same lessons apply – use a layered security approach, and the first layer is common sense. How do I know? Simple, I clean 20-30 computers a month sometimes. The attack vectors haven’t changed much over the years.

By Norton’s own admission, their products (and anti virus in general) can only stop about 1/2 of the threats out there. So let’s put that in practical perspective – when 10 bad guys come to the door, 5 will be getting in. Security doesn’t matter much then does it?

Do I suggest using anti virus software? Sadly, yes I still do. Some protection is better than none at all. Just remember, we can’t protect you from yourself.