4 ms·

> and it doesn't only happen to idiots who stuff their drives with porn. Instead, it only happens to people who don't keep their browser up to date so that it'

• learc83 15y ago
  I've seen plenty of the same fake AV malware that installs itself via drive-by downloads on computers with up to date firefox installs. Security patches aren't instant. Updating your browser helps sure, but it's not a real solution. There is a tendency for people like us to assume every time we see someone with a malware infection that it must be because the user is a moron who: still uses Kazaa, doesn't know about the good porn sites, is browsing on IE6 and installs anything that a popup asks him too. That just isn't true. It's not just idiots, the average non-moron windows user is massively vulnerable to malware. In my experience (I'll limit it to friends and family b/c of the obvious selection bias of including Geek Squad customers), nearly every (non developer) windows user I know has had at least one malware infection over the last few years that required either my help, or a system restore.
  • lallysingh 15y ago
    So what are us developers doing differently?
    • learc83 15y ago
      I would guess that some of that is b/c my developer friends are less likely to need my help with malware, so they don't tell me about it. Another guess but the rest of it is probably behavior based. Developers are less likely to spend all day on facebook playing flash games, more likely to have flashblock and adblock installed etc..
• yardie 15y ago
  Why is it the browsers job to secure your system? It doesn't matter if it's IE 1 or Chrome 12 if any application tries to install itself without user intervention the system should stop it by default.
  • trezor 15y ago
    If you have a modern OS (anything newer Vista, be it Windows or not), it will. Saying Windows is insecure because a decade-old version of it didn't have rigths-elevation is pretty silly.