One of the most dangerous things you may encounter while working on your computer is, of course, viruses. Anyone with a little computer experience knows about viruses and how to avoid them and knows the damage they can cause. However, viruses continue to spread and infect many devices despite the advancement of antivirus programs and their abundance. This may be due to misconceptions that some people may have when talking about antivirus programs and viruses, so we will discuss some of them with you.
I don’t use Windows, so I don’t need antivirus software (misconception)
Except for smartphone operating systems, the Windows operating system is the most commonly used these days, so it is natural that it is the most vulnerable to threats and malicious software, including viruses. However, this does not mean that other operating systems are not targeted by any type of malicious software or threats. Windows dominates 90% of the global market, making it the most vulnerable.
Moving on to the Mac system, which occupies only 6%, and yet it has been subjected to various threats over the years. One of the most prominent reports in 2012 indicated an infection of 600,000 devices. Although the number is very small compared to Windows devices, it proves that Mac devices are not immune to viruses or any kind of infection as some may think.
And now we come to Linux systems, which are less susceptible to infection due to their limited usage. Those who use Linux are large institutions or professional individuals who know how to protect their devices well. Despite this, the official Linux operating system website stated in a report on protection that no operating system, including theirs, is 100% protected from viruses!!.
Meaning that if you don’t download anything from the internet, you won’t get any viruses (misconception)
There is a misconception among some people that viruses only come to them through downloading files infected with viruses from the internet. This is, of course, a misconception. Even if you avoid downloading from the internet for this reason, you are also susceptible to infection through viruses via the internet. I’ll tell you that you might get infected through a infected flash drive or similar, not just through downloading.
Any hacker can hack a website and distribute his viruses on the site itself in the form of a script or flash that works as soon as you open the website. This is far from downloading from the website. Also, don’t forget about worms or malware that can spread through a network or even within your device’s files without you knowing, such as the botnet virus that makes your device part of a malicious network without your knowledge, and the Keylogger that you may not be aware of and appears as if it is legal.
Your device works fine. So I don’t need antivirus software that slows down my device (misconception)
People who believe that as long as their device is working fine with fast performance, they do not need an antivirus that may slow down their device without benefit. Well, perhaps the Real-Time process performed by antivirus software to detect viruses as soon as they enter your device and always works in the background may take up some of your device’s RAM and processor, but not to the extent you imagine. You will not notice this process much, in addition, it is difficult for you to detect a virus on your device by yourself, as most viruses today leave no traces that you can track to learn that there is a virus on your device. Remember with me the botnet virus that makes your device part of a malicious network without your knowledge, as well as the Keylogger that you may not notice and appears legal, which we discussed in detail in this topic How Key Logger monitors your computer activity (comprehensive topic).
All antivirus programs are the same and equally effective (misconception)
When choosing an antivirus program to protect your device from viruses, you are faced with many choices to decide which antivirus will suit you. Then someone comes along to tell you that all antivirus programs are the same and similar!! So you rely on this opinion, which of course relieves you of the hassle of choosing the right antivirus. You do not realize that choosing an ineffective antivirus exposes you to working on your device with false protection, which is more dangerous than “no protection at all” because you rely on your antivirus program and assume it is like any other and it actually lacks a lot and has many vulnerabilities that allow viruses to manipulate it.
And of course, we have talked a lot about the Av-Test Institute, which we talked about a lot during our blog posts and which shows us that not all antivirus programs are the same. They all differ in the level of protection, performance on the device, and usability. As we told you before, 5 sites to find the right antivirus for you, and all these sites are helping you to know the differences between each program and that they are not all the same.
