Einstein Says You Don't Need Anti-Virus

[WildCowboy]

Okay, so it's David Einstein in the San Francisco Chronicle telling readers that they "probably don't even need an anti-virus program." Most viruses come through e-mail, and "all big Internet providers and Web mail services check for viruses before they send messages."

I haven't used Windoze in years, but man, I wouldn't go out there without full body armor on if I had to use it...

 

[mad jew]

The article was really about not needing two antivirus programs as opposed to one. Nevertheless, my PC gets quite a bit of flack from simple browsing. I'd argue that I get more crap from browsing than from email but maybe that's just because, as he says, the ISPs filter a lot of junk out.

 

[WildCowboy]

Yes, the reader's question was about whether or not to use two antivirus programs at the same time. Einstein correctly explained why you shouldn't use two at the same time, but then went out on a limb with his "by the way" statement to suggest that you don't need one at all...

 

[SummerBreeze]

I know plenty of people who don't use anti-virus programs on their windows machines, they seem to work just fine. I run a free anti-virus program on windows, which I have no problem with. I kind of feel sorry for the people who spend over a hundred dollars every year on software they probably don't need.

 

[mad jew]

I know plenty of people who don't use anti-virus programs on their windows machines, they seem to work just fine.

I suppose it depends on how you use your PC and what sort of sites you go to, who emails you what and also whether you use anything illegal such as P2P. My PC is pretty clean but I still get some strange things from what would otherwise seem like normal sites.

I kind of feel sorry for the people who spend over a hundred dollars every year on software they probably don't need.

I wouldn't go that far. There is definitely still a very good justification for PC antivirus software.

 

[TheMonarch]

I feel sorry for those who need it in the first place

 

[neocell]

So many times I've downloaded files from my Yahoo! account in which the nice little window pops up and says can't be scanned (from trusted sources and pretty good idea what the file actually is, plus it's OSX, so why worry, at least for now). I'd be a bit troubled if I was on a PC without virus ware.

 

[topicolo]

So many times I've downloaded files from my Yahoo! account in which the nice little window pops up and says can't be scanned (from trusted sources and pretty good idea what the file actually is, plus it's OSX, so why worry, at least for now). I'd be a bit troubled if I was on a PC without virus ware.

Well, .wmv files can't have viruses or trojans anyway so does it really matter?

 

[neocell]

Well, .wmv files can't have viruses or trojans anyway so does it really matter?

I can't remember clearly but I'm sure it's from more than just wmv files, and why couldn't they have virus. Please excuse my ignorance. And no, it doesn't really matter, to me, as I'm not using a PC

 

[neocell]

As for virus attachment/embedding how about .wav and .dmg. Can viruses be embedded in them? I have no idea, I thought viruses could be in any file type but nevertheless I wouldn't trust my email to be checked through Yahoo!

 

[Zaha]

Virus code needs to be executed to infect your machine. Wmv and wav (and, in fact, most other) files generally can't contain viruses because they don't contain any executable code (even if they did it would never be run). Malicious code has sometimes been planted in some non-executable files to exploit vulnerabilities in particular programs, but I don't think that would be considered a virus.