Common sense is your best antivirus, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use an antivirus at all. And no matter how smartly you surf the internet, you will still need an antivirus on your computer, and that includes Mac too. Here I will be listing some of the reasons or excuses that people use to not use an antivirus on their computer. And if you’re not one of them, you still should read this, because there are still millions of people around the world that think that using an antivirus on their home machine (or any computer), is unnecessary.
And even if you only visit websites that you trust, and only click links that you know are safe, you are still vulnerable and that usually will cause you more trouble than what you expected.
Here are some of the reasons that people think why they don’t need an antivirus:
I’m Smart, I know What I’m Doing – This is the first, and probably the biggest reason that I hear from those internet savvy people. They think that they will only get those viruses or malware from shady websites, or downloading those illegal, unpatched software. And while this is still true to an extent, there are still vulnerabilities that are exploited even if you don’t visit those shady websites (ever heard about zero-day exploits?).
These Antiviruses Slow Down My Computer – In the past, maybe 5 years back, I would consider this as a legit reason. But now that the encryption services are designed in such a way that they utilize little to no resources, these antiviruses don’t make a huge difference in the speed of your machine.
That slowing down of your machine might be due to multiple scans or many different tasks running simultaneously that would be overlapping with each other. Also, if you are running an antivirus on a machine that does not meet its minimum hardware requirements, then that might be the reason for a slowdown, which in this case, you should upgrade your hardware, and not remove that antivirus because your information is more important than that hardware.
I Use A Mac – Oh boy, this myth has been going around for ages. And even though Mac users are less vulnerable compared to Windows users. It is because most viruses are aimed towards Windows users. This doesn’t mean that Mac users are safe and that they’re not vulnerable to any security issues. This overconfidence over your machine and invulnerability is a plus point for your hackers to access your information on an unprotected Mac.
I Don’t Have Any Data That Would Benefit Those Hackers – Let’s just consider that your computer is hacked, and all your information is compromised, except your financial information.
With those email addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses, the hackers can misuse the data, or might even sell to other hackers for their own financial gains. Or they might still misuse your data in some other manner to have some more monetary benefits. This is why even your home address can become vulnerable in such cases.
So, any person who uses an internet has a cluster of data that should be protected.
But using an antivirus doesn’t mean that you are protected by an ironclad. You should still be smart while surfing the internet.