So my question is do you still use Antivirus or firewall or etc on your PCs as of 2025? and more importantly do you think it is a relevant question?
Of course I still have full security on all my computers - Defender and Windows firewall with occasional double checks with Malwarebytes.
Relevant question? Sorry, but I think it is a silly question. Did the bad guys go away? Are new vulnerabilities (including zero-day) being discovered all the time?
Is malware still a threat today?
Do seat belts save lives? With newer cars having all those anti-collision features, and multiple airbags all around, are seat belts still needed? If the law didn't require it, would you use seat belts? Are all those silly questions? Yes.
Are you smarter than the bad guys? Especially the highly educated, vastly experienced, heavily resourced, organized bad guys often "state sponsored"?
Is the user still the weakest link in security? Absolutely! Even the most secure computer, house, bank, organization, etc. is easily compromised if the user opens the door and invites the bad guy in.
So are you totally infallible? It is absolutely impossible for you to ever be tricked, even once, by highly sophisticated, socially engineered malware? Is it impossible for you to accidently click on something you shouldn't have? If so, you must walk on water.
No, I don't. And I haven't for the last 17+ years, but I've always tweaked my OS for the added security, and use my brain when downloading stuff and running downloaded executables. Seriously infected my PC once in the mentioned period
And yet you were still infected! And even seem proud of the fact you were only infected once.
How many other computers did your computer infect, or innocent people did you jeopardize by allowing your computer to get infected? Don't say none because there's no way you could have a clue. Even if you physically took your computer off-line the instant you suspected the infection, it was too late. That piece of malware could have been on your computer for weeks or months, wrecking havoc on others before affecting your computer.
Yes, absolutely being a smart, careful user and paying attention - especially with unsolicited items is critical, goes a long way to keeping our systems clean, and may have saved your systems from many more infections.
But malware typically is intentionally designed to be invisible, difficult to be detected - especially once saved to disk. And sadly, by you not using security software, the data being downloaded to your system is not being scanned for malicious code or activity before being saved, or before "running" in the computer's operating environment.
Therefore, you are, and will remain ignorant of what is on your systems. That's meant more as an observation than a personal criticism. However, that ignorance of not knowing makes your computer (and thus you) a potential threat to others, and that is a criticism.
Back to seat belts, that reminds me of those who claim to be such good drivers, they don't need to wear seat belts.
- or need insurance.
I've owned this house for nearly 40 years now. I've never had my house burn down, broken into, or blown away by a tornado (and I live in
Tornado Alley). So I guess I don't need home owners insurance, huh?
I too have had just 1 infection. And I am not proud of that because I could have prevented it.
None of my own "personal" computers (and my first was a Gateway I bought directly from the factory in the late 1980s) have been infected because I use security software, I keep Windows and my security current and I avoid being "click-happy" on unsolicited links - plus I am the only one who has access to my personal computers - an important point.
It was on one of my work computers. And that was back in the early 1990s and it was through the "
sneakernet" when a co-worker brought in an infected floppy disk from his home. Unbeknownst to me, he put it in my computer to quickly print out a file, then he forgot about it. The next day, when I booted my computer, not realizing there was a floppy disk in the drive, it booted to the floppy first and infected my work computer. I was not happy.
Lesson learned? ALWAYS change the BIOS Setup menu to NEVER boot to floppy without prompting me first. Then make sure no unwanted bootable devices are left inserted (or attached) at the end of every computing session and before booting up next time.
And how would you know Defender is "yuck" if you haven't used any security for 17 years?
The "TRUTH" is 100s of millions of Windows users are using Defender and guess what? They haven't been infected. Over and over again the past several years, Defender has achieved top scores from multiple testing labs. "Yuck"? Yeah right.
and firewall isn't an AV, it's just a firewall...
Huh? My F150 isn't an AV either. Its just a pickup truck. Nobody claimed a firewall (or trucks) are AVs.
That said, computer (and router) firewalls are vital security tools to establish a barrier (firewall) between a trusted network or device and an untrusted network (the internet). Again, nobody claimed it was an AV.
I think it madness not to have some anti-virus running on a PC, in my case Defender.
Malware is like "life". And what is the primary, "primal" goal of all life? To reproduce! So what does malware do beside infect the host computer? It seeks out new computers to infect, first on the LAN then out on the Internet. For this reason, it is naïve, at best, to assume not keeping our computers properly secured with a capable anti-malware solution only affects the individual user.
So I can think of much more appropriate descriptions than "madness".
