My Virus Conspiracy Theory

Hey gang! Don't know how this will go over but here it goes. I use to build computers back in the day when you really had to if you wanted to run a DAW. Off the shelf was ridiculous. I worked on others computers as well and viruses was common. I mean all the time! I always suspected the virus protection vendors as the main ones putting these puppies out. I still do. However, now that the trend is everything going web-based I figured most of the common viruses would have to go in order to gain the trust of the consumer to be online with their precious computer. And from where I stand it would "seem" to be the case. I have two HP laptops for studio work and a home computer. No virus software on any of them! My studio computers do not have email installed and I'm still cautious not to visit any sites other than what's necessary. I have Sonar of course! IK multimedia SampleTank, Amplitude, Komplete 8 and a few others. I have not had a virus, at least not detectable, for over 5 years! I did do a system restore on my home computer once so I guess it was one virus that effected my email. So, am I crazy not to have virus protection? Do you? If so, what brand. Norton was too intrusive back in the day and I believe it still is. My computers are running smooth as ever! So please let me know what you think. I'll take my chances on NOT having virus protection at all other than the windows 8 stock. Also, I want to thank so many of you for helping me as I read other post I learn so much!  

Totally agree about MacAfee as well. Can't even move your mouse without a pop-up. Exaggeration but you get my point. Maybe after I get bit I'll try one of those you mentioned. Thanks!

Thanks for the advice. You think largely like I do. Just don't surf around much or really at all and no emails open on it. Grandma use to say "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". LOL! My original position is I think viruses is just another money making scheme. When the industry dictates it can no longer have any viruses they will disappear like a vapor. Now its quite tolerable, I guess until I get a virus! Much appreciated! If you ever tried to disable Norton the computer will go crazy. You have to uninstall it completely.

Norton is a virus unto itself, and IMO should be labeled as such, it's hideous, My sister in law and a couple of other people I know who's computers were playing up had Norton, removed that and all was good.

System Mechanic Pro. Go to their website and make your own decision.

I don't use anti-virus stuff - not on my work machine programming - absolutely not on daw machine.
 
#1. 4 years ago I started using internet usb stick kind of modem, and had this hang of taskbar for a couple of minutes in between activating internet. Thought it might be virus.
 
I tested a range of the most common antivirus, Norton, Kapersky, McAfee, AVG, Avira, PCTools and still one or two. Without exception these softwares caused more problems than my thought of virus. Machines were slow responding and made my machine perform like my first PC 1985 - 10MHz something. Tried all kinds of settings to disable stuff - but they still intervened more than I wanted. Some had serious bugs too, suddenly hanging the app running(AVG if some internet url parsing was active). Ran these for the trial period or shorter then uninstalled.
 
Looking further into my issue, turning off just about all software that were claiming internet looking for updates - it was basically not a problem anymore. Windows Automatic update service disabled, Flash player, Adobe Acrobat etc - turned off - and this hanging changed from every time booting up, to a couple of times a week only. So it's just something with how this usb stick drivers were hooking into tcp/ip.
 
Now switching to wireless broadband as separate router through wired network card - never any problems with this.
 
So still not running any antivirus.
 
#2. 15 years ago I think I got some kind of virus - browser and activeX controls something. I suddenly had some issue visiting a site. I had at the time two identical Windows NT 4 machines, and identified a file in system32 folder and copied from the other machine - and it went away and worked normally again.
 
So I took the chance to send the failing file to a couple of antivirus software companies - a report of possibly unknown virus. None showed any interest to investigate this at all.
 
This leads to same conclusion as OP - antivirus companies create these viruses because it's good for business.
 
So for me two good reasons not consider running antivirus software. It's basically a scam based on a problem that do exist - but is really minor compared to what antivirus software do to your system. Just some basic care when clicking on things - and you are fine.
 
Easiest way to control people and make them your slave - scare them. That is basically what antivirus companies do - make you pay annually(most of them). Since a payed service must be better than free, right?
 
I don't know, just my view of it all....

No anti-virus on main and backup DAW ...
 
I use anti-virus on office laptop that runs email and handles all downloads. Anything clients bring on USB sticks / send via mail or dropbox goes through that laptop ...
 
Got paranoid once after years without "protection" and installed anti-virus prior to doing a big bunch of online updates, scanned everything thoroughly but only found the "usual" threads that (I suspect) anti-virus programms always list to justify themselves
 

I used to use System Mechanic Pro and still have a current license but found it a resource hog. I did like the additional utilities included which I bought into - optimisations, defrags, cleanings stuff, blah blah. However, apart from it slowing things down more than it sped things up, the virus protection was reported as being pretty average. So I tried Iobit's System Care, which had a cool interface and had Bit Defender Virus protection, generally reported as being pretty good...only problem, BSOD when using CC...every time I tried to upgrade or install something. 
 
So now, after listening to some advice from a member, I'm just using Microsoft Security Essentials...seems to do the job, can upgrade via CC, low resource usage and it's free...not bad.
 
PS...I don't work for MS.

If you ran a mail server which accepted all incoming mail addressed to your domain you'd pretty quickly find out how many viruses (more accurately, trojans) there are out there. A huge proportion of spam carries a trojan payload, often concealed as an invoice or form to fill in.

The last time I saw an attempt to infect one of my machines was four years ago when the MS security application went berserk when I was reading a very reputable website indeed. Presumably the site had been hacked and instructions to automatically download and run a rootkit and trojan loader inserted into it. A website I run had an attempted hacking attack around the same time.

The time before that was a freshly installed XP which connected without me intending it to before the firewall was enabled. It attracted the attention of a worm in under a minute (botnets scanning the internet for open ports were the method of transmission).

Take an unprotected PC on line and you are taking a risk. The majority of malware out there nowadays is intended for the purpose of obtaining remote control of your PC for spamming and other purposes, much of it originates in Russia and the far east. The infection rate from hacked websites etc. is lower than it used to be because MS in particular has taken security much more seriously over the last decade and gradually closed holes that allowed buffer overun exploits and implemented proper user account level security.

As for the effectiveness of MSSE/Win8's defender, I have a collection of nasties acquired over the years and it picks up all of them as soon as they launch and blocks them before they can run. Not all commercial anti-virus applications are as effective.

Viruses are unfortunately not a thing of the past. A few weeks ago, virus was introduced at one of my client's office that cost literally 10's of thousands of dollars to clean up. Some of the software engineers there used to not run AVS on their home computers because "they never got a virus and only went to safe web sites". They do now.
 
That said, not all AVS is the same. I avoid Norton and McAffee. They are almost as bad as a virus, they are so intrusive. At the present, I'm running Avast on 7 computers and it is "OK". I disable it on the DAW when I'm doing something with a lot of VSTs. I also run scam now and then with MalwareBytes. 

I have never run AVS locally on any of my machines. I use an external "Internet Security Appliance" with all the AV, Malware, and intrusion prevention on the appliance. This protects all devices on the network. Desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, etc. It's a little pricey, but if you are protecting more than 3-4 devices, it is well worth it.
Personally, I use a Sonicwall TZ-200 with a subscription to GAV. NOTHING gets through.
 

jb101
Norton here, and no problems with it at all.

 
So do I, mostly for historical reasons.  It's served me well for years and years, but I am wondering for the first time if I'll renew.  The latest version has this nasty habit of going into an intense disk thrashing scan that can last an hour or more on my wife's destop computer even when I disable all scheduled scans in Norton and Windows.  That computer has tons of free drive space so that's not the problem.  I've more or less given up on trying to find out what's going on.  It's obviously NIS though.
 

I used to run Kaspersky, then it turned out they had ties to Russian Mafia!  So I went with MSE. After a while I got nervous and I did a free Norton trial. It worked fine, the problems reported in the past seem to have been fixed. But I declined to buy it. Went back to MSE, then got nervous again and went with Bitdefender Free. That's what I'm running now. Minimal interference; really the only issue is, I need to let it log in before opening anything up. Then all is well, it's totally non-intrusive.
 
I agree that it's risky not to run AV. My advice is to use a highly-rated free AV and see how it goes. To think that viruses are a thing of the past, or created by AV companies, is to live dangerously. Of course there are viruses. A day doesn't go by that we don't read of some new hacking plot. There are people out there who want to hurt you. Protect yourself, or you may pay big time.

I've not had a virus ever other than a  nasty that came from a friends SD camera card. Be careful about borrowing USB and SD cards. It was so bad it required a total OS install. 
 
I use the default Windows S E and now defender. I also run CC Cleaner free version from time to time and it cleans out junk cookies. I think only people who are looking for the wrong stuff on the net get into trouble. And only an idiot would open a Spam e mail. 

jeff oliver
Its a crime that there's no law for...yet. Or at least is being grossly overlooked. It's not a crime to create a virus, only to infect someone with it. But then what's the purpose. Except in Japan I believe where it is a crime to even create one. I could be wrong but they have taken a more serious step than we have in stopping this. And yes, Norton is the worst!!!

Believe it or not, it is probably for the best that there is no law against creating a virus. Our reactionary society is fond of crying for new laws whenever something hits our outrage button without thinking of the unforseen consequences (and there is always something we fail to forsee ).  For starters, the more specific a law, the easier it is to get around it, which also creates the paradigm of broader laws tend to have unintended victims. For example, a definition I just read of computer virus could easily encompass many legit applications. The Pace security software that installs with many software programs could easily fit the definition. If you have ever tried to uninstall it and looked at how easily it replicates itself in your registry,  you will know what I mean. Of course Pace is not a virus in the stereotypical way we think when we hear the word, but a sloppily written law (  which many are) could easily include such things. One might say the law could find a way to exclude software seen as beneficial but intent and morality are difficult to legislate effectively without biases that are sometimes irrational and non-uniform in application. Using the Pace example again, it can be argued that we read and agree to have the software on our computers. Unfortunately many viruses are acquired by users agreeing to install of their own free will without reading the fine print carefully. Society as a whole does not bother reading such things so even if the licensing agreement said "You agree to have my nasty virus take over your computer and have me come by to violate your wife on alternate Tuesdays" many would click to agree to the terms. Don't get me wrong, I am all for prosecuting people who use malware for criminal purposes, but I would be hesitant on such a broad stroke that will likely affect innocent more than guilty. The only way someone knows a person created a virus is if they confess or get caught in which case they are likely gettiing prosecuted for a crime anyway.  Making it a crime to create a virus just seems like it would not catch a single extra cyber criminal but may result in the arrests of people under mistaken circumstances.