It's been around four years since I've been using my current laptop and I have not had to deal with a single virus during that entire period (apart from the ones I made myself). To make that point hit you harder, I do not use an antivirus, and yes I run Windows.
I use the internet a lot, and while you might think I'm simply lucky, the truth is that there are loads of people who already do this. The idea is that there really are some foolproof methods you can apply to make viruses perpetually gone. We'll discuss those methods after I explain why antiviruses by themselves are not exactly safe.
Now you might be thinking : What's the big deal? So it's possible to avoid viruses, but I have an antivirus to keep myself on the safer side. It's not like it's doing me any harm.
Well, antiviruses can actually do a lot more harm than you think.
Antiviruses can often act bizarre and erratic. If you're trying to get some work done, this can be a bigger pain in the ass than having to deal with printers that were sent from hell.
The thing is, antiviruses try their best to keep your computer safe. Therefore by nature, it is suspicious of everything in your computer. The antivirus however doesn't know your computer as well as you do, which means that it will often target completely innocent files which can be crucial to keep your system running. As a result, the aftermath is often disastrous, or if you're lucky, just hilarious.
Which is why the really ironic part is this : The better the antivirus is, the harder it gets for the user to get his work done.
For example, this person's antivirus began to delete his system32 files.
Norton too is capable of funny fuckups.
If you've had an antivirus for long enough, you know exactly what I'm talking about. How many times did you download a harmless file for your school/work project only to have your antivirus flag it as malware and remove it from your system?
Not only does your antivirus take up memory and processing power that you could otherwise use for running your apps better, but sometimes antiviruses come with viruses bundled with them.
Pretty smart, huh? The people who make these viruses sure know what they're doing.
Fine, fine. So what do I have to do if I want to live without an antivirus?
I admit, when I first started out on the internet, I used an antivirus. Eventually, when I had to face all these problems, I realized I could do without them. I discovered the best way to avoid viruses is to use common sense.
I'm sorry if that's ambiguous (we will go a little into depth, don't worry), but rational thinking is all you need here to get you on your virus free path. Don't run files downloaded from untrustworthy sources, don't install shady plugins on your browser, don't visit sites that prompt you to install weird apps, etc.
You should pretty much already know these by now. You ignore ads that say you get a free iPad because you're the 10,000th visitor. You check reviews before downloading questionable software. You stay away from torrents that have surprisingly less seeders. All these are general ideas on how you simply have to use your intuition and be safe.
You can't get viruses from an image, or a song, so executables are the only offline resource that you need to be wary about when you download them. So if for some reason, you absolutely want to run such a file, and common sense isn't getting you far, then run the file through an online virus checker such as virustotal.com and if the site says the file is clean, then you're good. That's what I do when I download a crack or patch for a game, and I'm not sure it's safe.
You could even start a Virtual Machine and run the file in it for extreme cases. That will isolate the infection, if any, to only the Virtual Machine.
To be honest, that's all there is to it. Majority of the people I know who've complained about viruses simply missed out on the above in some instance or another. They might have visited a site with a slightly mistyped URL and downloaded something from there, or they installed a certain media player because a random online streaming site asked them to do so. Those were the most popular cases that I encountered.
Whether or not you use your antivirus beyond this point is upto you, but when people ask me what antivirus I recommend, I make sure they know that I don't, and I hope you will one day be a part of that crew, if you aren't already.
I use the internet a lot, and while you might think I'm simply lucky, the truth is that there are loads of people who already do this. The idea is that there really are some foolproof methods you can apply to make viruses perpetually gone. We'll discuss those methods after I explain why antiviruses by themselves are not exactly safe.
Now you might be thinking : What's the big deal? So it's possible to avoid viruses, but I have an antivirus to keep myself on the safer side. It's not like it's doing me any harm.
Well, antiviruses can actually do a lot more harm than you think.
Antiviruses can often act bizarre and erratic. If you're trying to get some work done, this can be a bigger pain in the ass than having to deal with printers that were sent from hell.
The thing is, antiviruses try their best to keep your computer safe. Therefore by nature, it is suspicious of everything in your computer. The antivirus however doesn't know your computer as well as you do, which means that it will often target completely innocent files which can be crucial to keep your system running. As a result, the aftermath is often disastrous, or if you're lucky, just hilarious.
Which is why the really ironic part is this : The better the antivirus is, the harder it gets for the user to get his work done.
For example, this person's antivirus began to delete his system32 files.
Norton too is capable of funny fuckups.
If you've had an antivirus for long enough, you know exactly what I'm talking about. How many times did you download a harmless file for your school/work project only to have your antivirus flag it as malware and remove it from your system?
Not only does your antivirus take up memory and processing power that you could otherwise use for running your apps better, but sometimes antiviruses come with viruses bundled with them.
Pretty smart, huh? The people who make these viruses sure know what they're doing.
Fine, fine. So what do I have to do if I want to live without an antivirus?
I admit, when I first started out on the internet, I used an antivirus. Eventually, when I had to face all these problems, I realized I could do without them. I discovered the best way to avoid viruses is to use common sense.
I'm sorry if that's ambiguous (we will go a little into depth, don't worry), but rational thinking is all you need here to get you on your virus free path. Don't run files downloaded from untrustworthy sources, don't install shady plugins on your browser, don't visit sites that prompt you to install weird apps, etc.
You should pretty much already know these by now. You ignore ads that say you get a free iPad because you're the 10,000th visitor. You check reviews before downloading questionable software. You stay away from torrents that have surprisingly less seeders. All these are general ideas on how you simply have to use your intuition and be safe.
You can't get viruses from an image, or a song, so executables are the only offline resource that you need to be wary about when you download them. So if for some reason, you absolutely want to run such a file, and common sense isn't getting you far, then run the file through an online virus checker such as virustotal.com and if the site says the file is clean, then you're good. That's what I do when I download a crack or patch for a game, and I'm not sure it's safe.
You could even start a Virtual Machine and run the file in it for extreme cases. That will isolate the infection, if any, to only the Virtual Machine.
To be honest, that's all there is to it. Majority of the people I know who've complained about viruses simply missed out on the above in some instance or another. They might have visited a site with a slightly mistyped URL and downloaded something from there, or they installed a certain media player because a random online streaming site asked them to do so. Those were the most popular cases that I encountered.
Whether or not you use your antivirus beyond this point is upto you, but when people ask me what antivirus I recommend, I make sure they know that I don't, and I hope you will one day be a part of that crew, if you aren't already.
