Top Mozilla Developer tells Windows Users to ditch all antivirus except Microsoft’s Defender

Robert O’Callahan, former distinguished engineer at Mozilla urges all users of Windows 8.1 and above to get rid of all Antivirus  products that are not Windows Defender.

Antivirus products don’t really work

O’Callahan retired from the non-profit  organization last year and says that there is little evidence that using any third party antivirus software actually improves PC security. Google’s Project Zero team, what works on Zero day exploits found out that antivirus products actually make Windows more vulnerable to attacks by creating a greater surface to exploit.

Two researches, working on a popular PC security product – Trend Micro found out over 200 vulnerabilities in the 11 software products by the security company itself. This was published in Forbes last week. Trend quickly patched them but did not speak about why these bugs were not discovered during audits at the company.

“Don’t buy antivirus software, and uninstall it if you already have it (except, on Windows, for Microsoft’s),” O’Callahan writes.

In recent years Ormandy has found numerous critical bugs in products from just about every major vendor, including McAfee, Symantec, Sophos, and Comodo.

Even an Antivirus maker agrees

Symantec, the company known to build the Norton lineup also agrees that antivirus products are useless these days. A lot of researches are now prodding with antivirus products not because their process run at higher privileges, but also, these processes undermine browser security.

Keeping  your Browsers and PC secure

All popular browsers come equipped with enough security built right into them. These include protection against drive by malware downloads, protection from scam of phishing sites, and  provides encryption. Most antivirus products often break down these security features to integrate theirs with the browser which, in many cases, do not work.

Chrome and Firefox are often broken down when antivirus vendors try to integrate their security features in the browser. The only case where an antivirus might help you is that you are using a seven year old Windows 7 or Windows XP. In that case, third party antivirus may provide some protection. Otherwise, Windows Updates and Windows Defender from Microsoft are enough to keep you protected.

Source: ZDnet