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Google Chrome Engineer Says Windows Defender 'the Only Well Behaved Antivirus', Cites 'Tons of Empirical Data' (onmsft.com)
Days after former Firefox developer Robert O'Callahan said that antivirus security suites are not necessary, and AV vendors are of little help. A Google Chrome engineer has echoed the same message, reaffirming that Microsoft's built-in software is indeed the most well-behaved security suite. From a report: Apparently the disdain for 3rd party AV solutions runs deep amongst browser developers, as in response to the threads a Google engineer, Justin Schuh, had this to say: "Browser makers don't complain about Microsoft Defender because we have tons of empirical data showing that it's the only well behaved AV."
I tend to agree. I used to have third party anti-virus on the wife's machine and the kids' machine, but really the most effective malware prevention is to take away root/admin privileges altogether. Anti-virus doesn't protect against the stupidity of users. If they install malware, no anti-virus will stop them. Almost everything that the anti-virus software caught was benign and were false alarms. And despite being useless, the crap software was a resource hog.
I have since uninstalled anti-virus. I will do an occasional malware bytes scan, but have done so less and less frequently as I find little but tracking cookies.
So, yes, I agree with this report.
The problem is that every company other than Microsoft has a built in conflict of interest. The AV software companies profit motives are not aligned with providing a good user experience. A good anti-virus system should be nearly invisible. Hard to convince customers to pony up a lot of money for security software unless you are always in their face and an anti-malware system that does this inherently results a bad product. Worse they have to keep tacking on extra "features" and products to convince customers their product is better than the next guys. Their business model is based on scaring customers so they buy their product based on perceptions rather than actually keeping them safe.
It's probably the "best-behaved" because it is one of the least effective anti-virus. It has terrible detection rates compared to its competitors. The other anti-virus programs may be pushier and embed themselves deeper into the host system, but that's necessary in order for them to (try to) root out the infections.
Arguably end-users do not need this sort of protection offered from better AV packages, that Microsoft's product is "good enough" for most users. Certainly, better Antivirus is no panacea; even the best scanner can still miss some viruses. Personally - having cleaned out too many virus-infected machines - I'd rather the end-user have the maximum available protection if only to slow down the infection rate a little, although that still doesn't help when the end-user deactivates the AV, never updates it or just flat-out ignores its warnings . But regardless of your opinion of the /necessity/ of the software, you can't simply judge Microsoft's offering without taking into consideration its effectiveness. It is "best behaved" (for whatever that means) because it simply /does less/.
These engineers forgot the most effective, powerful anti-virus product that is an absolutely essential install; the ad blocker.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I started doing PC support in my Field with Grandmas and small business.
AV software WAS USEFUL in the XP/98 era. I would argue with slashdoters calling them morons for not running it as you had 1 min max before infection on Windows 2000 or XP with no firewall!!L
We all ran admin istrator aka root and Win32 even had account personation services. Gee a dialup with no firewall or shitty software one with IE 6 running Java and Adobe flash without a sandbox on a local admin account was the norm so what could possibly go wrong!!??
Vista god bless it made UAC, privilege speration, scrambled ram addresses with aslr, buffer overflow protected buffers in c/c++, and psuedo local admin accountants which instead used a token to run something. Thanks Theo from OpenBSD for inspiration.
Windows 10 goes further too by using x86 features to separate data from executable bits directly on the CPU and signed bootloaders.
AdBlock and sandboxed Adobe products and AdBlock all make Windows OK now. Not perfect, but OK.
I just reused an Asus sabertooth I threw out in storage 2 years ago . I thought it was broken! Why? Esset kept making my ssds loose data. I thought SATA ports were bad. Went thru 3 expensive ssds. It was my damn AV software glitching them.
Keep updates current, run AdBlock, DNS service like the free Norton DNS servers on your router's, and heaven sakes don't click everything you download and you will be fine in 2017. AV software forges SSL certificates too which is dangerous
http://saveie6.com/
That does rather presume you're running Windows.
Which, lets be honest, Windows is SO badly full of security holes compared to any other OS that Microsoft HAD to come up with Defender to avoid loosing all credibility.
Defender still appears to really just be an easy copout workaround for Microsoft, rather than them addressing the actual problem which is the fundamentally weak architecture of Windows itself.
Regardless of anyone's particular sentiments on aPK (he doesn't bother me), black-holing garbage domain names (something something hosts file) and IP addresses (if possible) is an excellent source of additional protection.
I don't use any AV software. I don't need to. I have ClamAV in a live session for customers. And that way there's no files locked.
...Browser makers don't complain about Microsoft Defender because we have tons of empirical data showing that it's the only well behaved AV....
There is more, a lot more, to an a/v than what is seen via the myopic view of a browser developer.
I think it's a bit more than just "Microsoft unfair advantage". Other AV products have always been monstrously bloated affairs, and have become all the worse over then last decade as they throw all kinds of other shit like firewalls and the like in. Products like mcafee and Norton have become almost as bad as the disease they purport to treat. So far as I can tell, Defender really doesn't do much more than sniff out viruses and malware, and while I agree Microsoft's insider knowledge probably gives it a bit of an edge, I think the narrower intent of the software has a lot to do with its better performance.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.