Software Seller: Hello, would you like any anti-virus software for your new computer?
Translation: Hello potential victim, can we get more money from you based on your *unawareness of technology?
Innocent and unnecessarily worrying customer: Um, i don’t know. It’s a bit expensive.
Translation: There isn’t any. They are innocent.
Software Seller: We highly recommend you get ant-virus software, or your computer *will* most likely get infected.
Translation: We really really REALLY want your money, worry about this because it will help persuade you to give us your money.
Innocent and unnecessarily worrying customer: Oh ok, I’ll take it.
Translation: You know more than me sooo…
Software Seller: Awesome.
Translation:
*unawareness: a nicer way to say stupid
In the common world, if there is a villain there is a hero just for the sake of balancing.. this world isn’t common. Nowadays, if there is a villain there is another villain disguised as a hero. That other villain is your average everyday anti-virus.
Take a good look at the picture above. Each one of those is a program in existence that does not need to exist, if it does its solely because of human error.
People feel comfortable seeing a big huge screen pop up whenever you are on your computer or even when you boot it up everyday where there is a big green check mark saying you are secured. But are you?
If you feel comfortable about the fact that the majority of your computer’s power being taken just to scan every file you click on or every program you want open for infectious data that doesn’t even need to be smart enough to sneak through your viruses, then there is a problem.
If you are willingly paying per year for an anti-virus that usually sees threats as temporary cookies that are harmless or for an anti-virus that doesn’t do anything when you know for sure you are infected, you’re not doing something right.
If people want to know why viruses appear on laptops, its simple! It’s because they let it happen!
As of today, computers with Windows 10 and Mac computers do not get viruses out of the blue. The reason why is short and sweet- they do whatever they can to make sure you don’t let it through.
People download stuff. This is how viruses come up. No, it doesn’t appear out of the blue. People torrent illegal content, or they think a fishy site is legit. If they see free they go for it, or if a prompt pops up they click allow to have the program download. The human brain is the best anti-virus you will ever have.
You are the one controlling what goes through and doesn’t and the so called anti-viruses you buy for the store or google to get for free do not operate for that because you gave these viruses permission to access your computer.
For windows 7/8/ and 10, they have a built in security system that does not take a lot of power, don’t need to scan regularly, doesn’t make your computer slow and its called Windows Defender. You don’t need internet for it unless you want to update it, but its already there! If you get an anti-virus it wont activate since the computer senses you have security software. Defender is pretty much common sense for your brain, that is if the prompts and warnings windows give you doesn’t alert your attention you are about to infect your laptop.
For mac, by default 3rd party applications are not allowed to be downloaded, for your safety. On top of that, every-time you need to download something it will ask for your user credentials and also give you pop ups to re-think your choice if need be.
As mentioned previously, the best anti-viruses in the world is your brain. Your common senses knows all. Only you can prevent wildfires, only you can prevent infections on your electrical, button-pushing, folding sandwich box.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Tech Rant by danbarbara and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
