4 ms·

Honest question: what is AV even for these days? I have had some form of AV on all of my Windows machines since the 90's. I don't think I have seen a detection

Honest question: what is AV even for these days? I have had some form of AV on all of my Windows machines since the 90's. I don't think I have seen a detection in at least ten years.

eridius 7y ago
If nothing else, herd immunity. That said, I don't know if there's any compelling reason to use something beyond what the OS vendor already provides.
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  Herd immunity is a decent argument. Still, it is hard to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions out there.
- coldsauce 7y ago
  Agree with you, on Windows. But when you go into Linux and Mac territory, there really isn't any OS Vendor specific security solution that does what many people need. AV is still super important to have for people who don't understand that downloading a fake flash player to watch the newest game of thrones episode isn't the best idea. And there's a lot of those people out there.
  - bboygravity 7y ago
    Ironically those are the same people who will install 2 or 3 different virus scanners simultaneously ("just in case") thereby making their PC as unusable as it would be with even the worse virus.
  - eridius 7y ago
    Apple does actually have malware protection built in to macOS. It's not nearly as extensive as something like Windows Defender and is pretty much invisible to the user, but it does exist.
HeavenFox 7y ago
Every single company I worked for installed AV on our work computers, which was a huge resource hog and made the highest-specced MacBook Pros feel like cheap netbook. I suspect it is mandated by some sort of compliance requirement, and the IT departments are just ticking a box. Maybe that's how this industry is still alive.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  ISO 27001. It doesn't mandate it explicitly, but your auditor may get fussy if you can't answer questions about the relevant controls with a clear answer.
- noselasd 7y ago
  If you have an IT department, they will insist on AV software just to cover their ass. Noone there wants to be the one explaining to a clueless boss that they didn't use av software og something bad happened.
  - mcny 7y ago
    I don't mind having an antivirus on Windows but I despise having real-time file scanning when I have a computer with spinning rust. Node Package Manager install or yarn install creates thousands of tiny files and my understanding is that these "antivirus" software try to scan each file at the same time as npm wants to create them or in earlier days even as subversion was trying to do something. I imagine things are different for people on PCIe NVMe SSD but Windows (or any modern OS I guess with any antivirus) is not so good if we are on spinning rust. I think if we insist on real-time file scanning, the least we can do is provide at least a decent SATA SSD like the Samsung 860 EVO and adequate RAM to avoid thrashing.
    - andai 7y ago
      I was using a spinny disk for a few weeks and I upgraded back to SSD the other day. The difference is incredible. Browser used to take 10 seconds to start, now it's instant. The only good thing is, I got so frustrated waiting constantly that I optimized my software to minimize IO (eg disabled browser history) so now it's even faster.

Honest question: what is AV even for these days? I have had some form of AV on all of my Windows machines since the 90's. I don't think I have seen a detection in at least ten years.

eridius 7y ago

If nothing else, herd immunity. That said, I don't know if there's any compelling reason to use something beyond what the OS vendor already provides.

Skunkleton 7y ago
Herd immunity is a decent argument. Still, it is hard to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions out there.
coldsauce 7y ago
Agree with you, on Windows. But when you go into Linux and Mac territory, there really isn't any OS Vendor specific security solution that does what many people need. AV is still super important to have for people who don't understand that downloading a fake flash player to watch the newest game of thrones episode isn't the best idea. And there's a lot of those people out there.
- bboygravity 7y ago
  Ironically those are the same people who will install 2 or 3 different virus scanners simultaneously ("just in case") thereby making their PC as unusable as it would be with even the worse virus.
- eridius 7y ago
  Apple does actually have malware protection built in to macOS. It's not nearly as extensive as something like Windows Defender and is pretty much invisible to the user, but it does exist.

HeavenFox 7y ago

Every single company I worked for installed AV on our work computers, which was a huge resource hog and made the highest-specced MacBook Pros feel like cheap netbook. I suspect it is mandated by some sort of compliance requirement, and the IT departments are just ticking a box. Maybe that's how this industry is still alive.

Freak_NL 7y ago
ISO 27001. It doesn't mandate it explicitly, but your auditor may get fussy if you can't answer questions about the relevant controls with a clear answer.
noselasd 7y ago
If you have an IT department, they will insist on AV software just to cover their ass. Noone there wants to be the one explaining to a clueless boss that they didn't use av software og something bad happened.
- mcny 7y ago
  I don't mind having an antivirus on Windows but I despise having real-time file scanning when I have a computer with spinning rust. Node Package Manager install or yarn install creates thousands of tiny files and my understanding is that these "antivirus" software try to scan each file at the same time as npm wants to create them or in earlier days even as subversion was trying to do something. I imagine things are different for people on PCIe NVMe SSD but Windows (or any modern OS I guess with any antivirus) is not so good if we are on spinning rust. I think if we insist on real-time file scanning, the least we can do is provide at least a decent SATA SSD like the Samsung 860 EVO and adequate RAM to avoid thrashing.
  - andai 7y ago
    I was using a spinny disk for a few weeks and I upgraded back to SSD the other day. The difference is incredible. Browser used to take 10 seconds to start, now it's instant. The only good thing is, I got so frustrated waiting constantly that I optimized my software to minimize IO (eg disabled browser history) so now it's even faster.