The Cure is Worse than the Disease

Nobody wants anti-virus software. It is an unfortunate necessary evil for Windows users. To that end, anti-virus software should be as transparent to the user as possible. It should simply do its job with a minimum of interruptions to the user and have as little impact to the computer’s performance as possible. It should NEVER cause problems – because that is exactly what anti-virus software is trying to prevent!

Introducing problems is the ultimate failure of anti-virus software but unfortunately it happens all too often. I’m not surprised. The very nature of anti-virus software is to place itself deep in the guts of the operating system and monitor every bit of data passing through it. Additionally, besides dealing with extraordinarily complex software, anti-virus developers are in a race to stay ahead of malware authors. Speed kills, especially when dealing with complex systems, and anti-virus programmers are moving at breakneck speed.

The recent, well-publicized, colossal blunder on the part of McAfee that rendered many users’ computers inoperable is a testament to this fact. It is entirely feasible that for many, McAfee’s software caused more pain and suffering than any virus or spyware would have! It is also a testament that the malware issue on Windows operating systems continues to escalate. As mentioned before, the desire to stop dealing with malware is one of the top reasons users are switching away from Windows. Situations like this only shine a much brighter light on the already glaring problem.

That elephant in the room continues to get larger. Pretty soon it may crowd everyone out.

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