But the thing is I'm not going to sell you the next best anti-virus software money this side of the milky way can buy.
Why not you may ask?
Well where is the guarantee that the software actually works? Or that you are going to practise safe surfing? And how about your friends, real life and on line? How can we be sure they are also going to do their bit to ensure your system is going to be kept out of harms way?
Or prevent you getting a virus that leaks your personal details to some educated tech geek who does not have anything better to do with his time but to write some nasty virus that will have you spending hundreds of dollars at your local computer repair shop.
So firstly we need to look at what it is you are asking for.
- Anti-virus software
- Stop viruses at the front door
- Remove any potential threats that managed to slip through un-noticed
- Lowest resources used possible
- Trojan stoppers
I am going to talk about the life cycles of viruses and anti-virus software. Never heard of an anti-virus having a life cycle? They certainly don't mention that in the endless amounts of ads and reviews, instead choosing only to talk about 99.9% detection and how they use just the tiniest amount of computer resources while keeping you safe.
Think of the case of the chicken and egg saga. The chicken before the egg? Apply it to this scenario and the virus had to come first. Think about it. Doctors don't find a cure for small pox before people actually get small pox. So why would software programmers be any different? Why would they write a program that detects something that has yet to be programmed? Answer, they don't!
So if the virus came first (I see no reason to believe otherwise) how can you expect to stop 99.9% of viruses?
Well that bit is easy because that is the percent of all known viruses. So the unknown still get through, do their thing and eventually the anti-virus software manufactures find one of these viruses and adds it to their ever growing database.
How long is that time frame? Well that could depend on how well written the virus is, but I would hope no longer than 6 months; even though just 1 week on the inter web, is long enough to infect millions of users, and if your after personal information, and you have set your sites on just 1%, that means in 1 week, 1 virus could net its maker 10,000 plus user details. Chances are they are aiming just a little higher than 1%, more likely around 4%, but still, 10,000 plus user details will most likely give them access to a few usable credit card details, maybe a couple of bank accounts, before any users know they have been hit, its too late.
So why is it so easy for these guys to beat the companies with the know how and the financial backing? That's easy if you step back and take a look at the big picture, a lot of companies offer a free copy of their software, often with a short trial period, after which you are asked to purchase the software, if you continue to use without purchase, the software will still protect you, however it won't remove the viruses, instead it will put the entire file containing the virus into a vault or similar safe zone where your system cannot access the file and active the virus. So if it is free to you, then it is free to the guys writing the virus, and if they can write a virus, I am pretty certain they can De-compile an anti-virus program to see how it works and how to get a virus around it; which is why your software needs to do updates; the updates fix these on your system (Oh and on the virus makers system). So free does not sound like a safe option.
Buying the costly version that offers me protection just short of having a T-Rex roaming around my backyard; On the surface, what could possibly be wrong here, I am helping to contribute to the company so that they may write even better virus protection for my system. Well that's about as far as that goes, you see, it might cost you anywhere from $30 - $500 to purchase, which you have to contribute all of your own money towards. The other guys, well they work together, because they don't want a copy to protect themselves with, they are more than happy to share the cost, 1000 people each putting in $10, gives these guys $10,000 to spend on software that they are just going to De-compile at the end of the day. Remember earlier I said they get access to peoples details and possibly their accounts, well its not their $10 at the end of the day they use.
So lets recap this into a cycle of life
- Virus is written
- Access is gained to many systems and accounts
- Anti-virus is written
- People purchase Anti-virus
- Hackers obtain copy of anti-virus
- Restart the cycle
But if I am right, what is the point, well would you rather know that you had a virus, or just carry on life as if nothing ever happened. If you grab a free version of anti-virus, such as Avast, AVG etc, carried out regular updates of your system, and your virus database, practised safe surfing, chances are you will be at a lower risk than those people who continue to download free music, movies, games and software because they don't wish to pay, but they do pay somewhere down the fibre.
End of the day, you are just a system in the middle, either losing your hard earned cash to the hacker once he has compromised your system, or paying out big dollars for something that's actually out of date before it even started. At least the known viruses are being keep at bay.
techOnoma
