[dspillett]

> (an maybe never) exceed their downsides

There were certainly times when they were necessary: when Windows had nothing built-in to defend itself, and for a time after then when those built-in features were crap.

Those times are pretty much over now IMO. I'd go as far as to suggest that the market is now an attempt at a protection racket and hardware hawkers are complicit: things come pre-installed on new laptops and make very misleading claims about what might happen if you uninstall them instead of subscribing after the free trial period (ref: Dad got a new laptop recently, I went through and removed all the junk included with it, I can see why people with little technical experience might just pay up).

[ssl232]

> There were certainly times when they were necessary

Around the time of Windows 7 I stopped using anti-virus software and nothing happened. And for a long time before that, paid antivirus software (ESET NOD-32) wasn't finding anything. I think the simple rules of having a router with a firewall, not clicking random files, not using Internet Explorer, and keeping Windows up to date covered 99% of possible exploits, and the other 1% was luck.

[WorldMaker]

Windows 7 was the first version that Microsoft was allowed (by the US/EU antitrust decisions) to have Defender installed out of the box in Windows. They were trying to do that as far back as XP and "Security Essentials" (the name before Defender) was a free and easy download on XP and Vista, but without the protection racket style marketing it was easy to miss and not everyone realized that there was a nice, quiet Windows anti-virus tool from Microsoft just a click away. I still think bundled anti-virus was one of the stupider things the antitrust decisions blocked and it gave the protection rackets a few more years to solidify power that they didn't need.

[merb]

Actually an antivirus will only help if you already have malware. (Or if it scans downloads/websites) but it will, most of the time, not prevent new malware.

[LeonB]

The fact that a computer bought from a store, that you pay good money for, comes with this crapware installed shows that even when you do pay, sometimes you are still the product not the customer.