| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| jema |
PCPro article on viruses/malwareThe article is several pages long and comprises of their attempts to get their PCs infected by surfing various bits of the net, from major web sites to those thrown up by various searches from the legitimate to the dodgy, plus exercises in downloading via bittorrent and other iffy sources.To me the article confirms what I have constantly been saying, with legitimate web surfing there is almost nothing to worry about, in one case they got to search result 243 out of 250 before finding a web site that tried to install malware (and the browser itself would stop this unless you click on "sucker") and that was one of the worst cases. The major culprits with infection rates in the 10%-30% range were dodgy music/video downloads, sometime disguised as "you must install this codec to play the video" or with a name such as video.avi.exe designed to fool you that they are safe. Windows criminally if you ask me defaults to hiding the ".exe" extension! Downloads of pirated software were also often infected. What is key to note about the infected downloads is that people determined to run such things are liable to override warning by AV software, and the AV software is relatively unlikely to recognize them as know malware as they change all the time. In other words in my view AV software does very little for you, it is not needed to stop anything you come across in normal browsing, anything you do come across can be stopped by the browser anyway, anything you do insist on doing that is dodgy will probably be unknown by the AV system or overidden by the user. |
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| orangepippin |
Interesting you should say this. I have been thinking of turning off the AV on one of my systems for pretty much the same reasons ... not sure I need it any more. The email is all scanned by my ISP and that seems reliable, plus I always take care with ones from strange origins. And as you say provided you don't go to stupid sites the browser (FF3) keeps you safe when surfing. | ||
| Treacodactyl |
If you use internet banking then the terms and conditions might insist you have up-to-date AV otherwise if any fraud occurs on your account they can blame you, regardless of whether the AV works or not. | ||
| mark |
If you have anyone else in your household (kids, partner, visitors) who might ever have access to your computer then keep your AV/Spyware/malware software switched on !!
The last malware installation attempt i suffered was two or three days ago when i followed a link to a news story. I surf with Firefox with NOSCRIPT and only turn on flash and javascript one i have checked over a site so it was immediately blocked.(the web development toolbar- makes it easy to check source etc.) But i wouldn't trust anyone else to check like I do! so the AV stays there. mark |
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| RichardW |
I think that sums it up Mark. Internet savy people might not need it but the great masses of the unwashed do. Its not perfect but its better than nothing.
Does having av encorage them to take risks? I dont know. But prob the risk takers would do so anyway. The sites are targeted at down loaders of illegal stuff mainly. Richard |
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| jema |
AV sells it self by saying it will protect, hence it can only encourage unsafe surfing and see as it is about as useful as a paper bag over the head in the event of nuclear strike, I'd say it causes problems. |
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| RichardW |
So condoms encorage you to have sex with people from "risky" groups?
Or do they make "normal" sex safer? How about about insurance? Do people take more risks cos they have it? Or is it to cover the unexpected? Risk takers will take risk with or without it. Richard |
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| jema |
I don't think the same logic applies. I'd really like to see some research done into this area though, as I'm not certain that my judgment of the way people think on this is correct. | ||
| jema |
Here's another report of the latest malware. Once again it beats the AV systems.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/limbo_trojan/ |