Its a CONSPIRACY

[patsopinion]

"Viruses" are a conspiracy to perpetuate the need for anti virus software and keep companies like Norton profitable.

95 percent of people who get a Virus have a software or system file conflict.

Those viruses that do exist are created by these companies by outside "consultants" to keep the company afloat.

Just letting you ppl behind the curtain there

[TheRealEddie]

"Viruses" are a conspiracy to perpetuate the need for anti virus software and keep companies like Norton profitable.


What? No mention of Apple is this ancient conspiracy theory? Ever wonder why Macs are victims of so few viruses?

[Midkiff]

I hate McAfee

[patsopinion]

What? No mention of Apple is this ancient conspiracy theory? Ever wonder why Macs are victims of so few viruses?

are they so few in viruses or have we been conditioned by various news orgs./ anti virus distributors to think that the amount of pc viruses isn't overly inflated to drive up demand for the their product

Outside of their operating system and office suite, the software most pc users will purchase is anti virus, and its only good for a year before you have to buy a new one.

and thats not to say that apple doesnt intentionally slow down pcs. Their quicktime and itunes players are designed to take up mutch more pc band width then comparable programs and they both connect to the internet and send companies your information/ and slow down your internet.
And thats if they are not making viruses of their own

[empulse]

New viruses are created everyday, I don't put it past big bidness to release viruses to keep themselves relevant, but its not likely. There are alot of data mining operations on the net, all the time. Some resort to key loggers, and trojans to to capture and send data, or allow real time access to your computer. Your computer can then be used as a bot to send spam, or for file storage, or other tasks.

Anti-Virus software is only reactive. Its needs updated to the newest discovered threats. So only after a threat has been discovered, and the virus torn apart, and dissected... do you get a definition for it. It doesn't see brand new threats until they are discovered.

But that being said, it doesn't hurt to scan your download folder once a week while you sleep. There are plenty of known viruses being recycled in P2P networks.

[patsopinion]

Anti-Virus software is only reactive. Its needs updated to the newest discovered threats. So only after a threat has been discovered, and the virus torn apart, and dissected... do you get a definition for it. It doesn't see brand new threats until they are discovered.

I hate McAfee

my mom recently downloaded the newest version of McAfee from her isp.
It has a feature called active scan where it constantly monitors the entire computer.
It has never found anything serious.
It slowed her computer down to the point where she called me crying one day on her way to the public library because her computer didn't work and it was somehow my fault that mcafee put out the worst piece of software ever.


Oh and btw, fuck turnion, i love amd but this culture of 4 hours of battery life and compromising power is bullshit.
If you want something that can take 4 hours of battery buy a treo and a blue tooth keyboard.

[sailor]

my head hurts. why do i read these??

[JustJon]

my head hurts. why do i read these??

For the excuse to take "headache medicine"

[sailor]

For the excuse to take "headache medicine"

more laudanum for me!!

[TheRealEddie]

are they so few in viruses or have we been conditioned by various news orgs./ anti virus distributors to think that the amount of pc viruses isn't overly inflated to drive up demand for the their product


Working in an environment that has both a large amount of post-OS X Macs and Windows XP machines from experience I can tell you its the former.

[FezPaul]

What? No mention of Apple is this ancient conspiracy theory? Ever wonder why Macs are victims of so few viruses?

That's right maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

[PapaBear]

I think the whole idea is total nonsense, but I wouldn't care if it was true. I use free anti virus software, and I think I've had a total of 3 virus warnings in as many years. None of them ever did any damage.

[ritzgal]

It's just one more way for the man to keep us down.

[Death Metal Moe]

Reverend, reverend,
Is this a conspiracy?
Crucified for no sins
No revenge... beneath me.
Lost within my plans for life,
It all seems so unreal.
Im a man cut in half in this world,
Left in my misery.

[Freakshow]

It's a conspiracy. C-O-N-spiracy.

[Bob Impact]

Reverend, reverend,
Is this a conspiracy?
Crucified for no sins
No revenge... beneath me.
Lost within my plans for life,
It all seems so unreal.
Im a man cut in half in this world,
Left in my misery.

DAMN IT! THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED TO POST!

The moon landing, 9/11, and the pyramids are all conspiracies too. MMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNN!

[fohat]

While it is true that Antivirus companies like Norton do write viruses, mostly in order to test the heuristics and algorithms for detecting unknown virus, I can cite several that had a major impact on various IT infrastructures in past years and were not written by Norton. For example, the Melissa virus, Code red worm, the "I Love You" virus, Bagel worm, etc etc. were all written by either script kiddies or bona fide virus writers.

I'm not saying you are totally wrong. Any of the free anti-virus software that I have used is heads and tails better than non-free. For example, Antivir, AVG, Clam, and Kaspersky all work just as well and have free versions. Sorry I'm too lazy to link anything in this post :p

Also I'm not too sure about your claims regarding itunes and quicktime using all your bandwidth. The one thing I do remember is that at one point, maybe in release 6, they turned on the Mini-Store by default and there were some privacy concerns about that, which Apple addressed.

And that's the end of my post. Donk!

[sailor]

While it is true that Antivirus companies like Norton do write viruses, mostly in order to test the heuristics and algorithms for detecting unknown virus, I can cite several that had a major impact on various IT infrastructures in past years and were not written by Norton. For example, the Melissa virus, Code red worm, the "I Love You" virus, Bagel worm, etc etc. were all written by either script kiddies or bona fide virus writers.

I'm not saying you are totally wrong. Any of the free anti-virus software that I have used is heads and tails better than non-free. For example, Antivir, AVG, Clam, and Kaspersky all work just as well and have free versions. Sorry I'm too lazy to link anything in this post :p

Also I'm not too sure about your claims regarding itunes and quicktime using all your bandwidth. The one thing I do remember is that at one point, maybe in release 6, they turned on the Mini-Store by default and there were some privacy concerns about that, which Apple addressed.

And that's the end of my post. Donk!

if the free are as good (let alone better) wouldn't the word-of-mouth buzz about that outweigh all the advertising the big for-profits have going for them. another thing, if these free products are so good, why wouldn't they try selling them? altruism? i'm skeptical at best. i have no facts or firsthand info on these programs, but i don't see how what you are saying could be possible.

[fohat]

if the free are as good (let alone better) wouldn't the word-of-mouth buzz about that outweigh all the advertising the big for-profits have going for them. another thing, if these free products are so good, why wouldn't they try selling them? altruism? i'm skeptical at best. i have no facts or firsthand info on these programs, but i don't see how what you are saying could be possible.

They are free as in beer. For example, using Antivir will pop an ad up to buy the commercial version which goes away after a minute I think (I pointed the website to my local machine so that it wouldn't send traffic to their site). Also some packages may limit with the number of updates you can recieve in a given day and so forth; but for the most part they are just as full featured as spending 30-50 dollars.

There is definitely a positive buzz going around for these Alternative products. My parents were in Texas last winter staying at a big RV park with lots of other retired folks. They have classes and such for people that want to learn about basic computer security or whatever. My mom called me from there and said, "They told me to use FoxFire to browse and Antivir or AVG for virus's". I had to subsequently correct her several times about the foxfire, but she now knows that it's Mozilla Firefox :) But I was surpised and happy that the teachers knew about the alternatives, and were proclaiming their value.

My feeling has always been , use what you are most comfortable with, but not if it sucks the life out of your system.

[sailor]

They are free as in beer. For example, using Antivir will pop an ad up to buy the commercial version which goes away after a minute I think (I pointed the website to my local machine so that it wouldn't send traffic to their site). Also some packages may limit with the number of updates you can recieve in a given day and so forth; but for the most part they are just as full featured as spending 30-50 dollars.

There is definitely a positive buzz going around for these Alternative products. My parents were in Texas last winter staying at a big RV park with lots of other retired folks. They have classes and such for people that want to learn about basic computer security or whatever. My mom called me from there and said, "They told me to use FoxFire to browse and Antivir or AVG for virus's". I had to subsequently correct her several times about the foxfire, but she now knows that it's Mozilla Firefox :) But I was surpised and happy that the teachers knew about the alternatives, and were proclaiming their value.

My feeling has always been , use what you are most comfortable with, but not if it sucks the life out of your system.

cool, it just sounded at first like it was all robin hood type guys running around making software for the people out of the kindness of their hearts.

[fohat]

cool, it just sounded at first like it was all robin hood type guys running around making software for the people out of the kindness of their hearts.

They steal code from the rich and hack for the poor!


I better go and hide all my Lupines...

[sailor]

They steal code from the rich and hack for the poor!


I better go and hide all my Lupines...

wouldn't money or food be more practical?

[patsopinion]

if the free are as good (let alone better) wouldn't the word-of-mouth buzz about that outweigh all the advertising the big for-profits have going for them. another thing, if these free products are so good, why wouldn't they try selling them? altruism? i'm skeptical at best. i have no facts or firsthand info on these programs, but i don't see how what you are saying could be possible.

also their is an inherient belief that if you pay for something it will be better than something that you got for free(not stolen but actually free)

it the same reason ppl buy infiniti when the nissan is the exact same product(except this example isnt 100 percent because infiniti treats you so mutch better as far as service and the like, and a nissan isnt free, but you get the idear)

[FezPaul]

They steal code from the rich and hack for the poor!


I better go and hide all my Lupines...

Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, is not in this bit.

[Furtherman]

"Viruses" are a conspiracy to perpetuate the need for anti virus software and keep companies like Norton profitable.


Unless the conspiracy contains aliens, contrails, freemasons, illuminati, hollow earth or the lizard race that use missing children to build their underground city beneath the Denver airport, then I'm not interested.

[patsopinion]

Unless the conspiracy contains aliens, contrails, freemasons, illuminati, hollow earth or the lizard race that use missing children to build their underground city beneath the Denver airport, then I'm not interested.


i guess im off to denver(home of the Freemasons)
wish me luck