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Why CodingHorror is horribly wrong about Blacklists and Virus Scanners
Jeff and I had an interesting debate on virus scanners a few weeks ago. He posted his take on the conversation yesterday, and (surprise!) we both think we won the argument. I believe the difference of opinion really comes down to a few different assumptions about the problem we're trying to solve:
- Different classes of Anti-Virus Software (Quality AV Software vs. Bundleware)
- Antivirus Effectiveness (Is it really just 33% effective?)
- The Goal of Virus Protection (Risk Management vs. Invincibility)
- Modeling the Threat (Known malware vs. New malware)
- Approach to Security (Practical vs. Theoretical)
- Productivity Tradeoffs (Virus Scanning vs. Running As Administrator)
So, let's go through the list: