Short answer no. End user workstation 3rd party AntiVirus is not necessary. With the recent FTC fine to Avast for $16.5 million for selling customer data they said they would protect, I decided to use this as an excuse to talk about free and paid 3rd party AV. It's not necessary for everyday users. Maybe a second opinion is good to have. But is it worth the tradeoffs of privacy, system performance degradation, and annoying settings? Probably not. The default Microsoft Windows Defender or MacOS XProtect are usually good enough.

⏰ Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:24 AntiVirus Computer Impacts
1:56 a tidbit on AV Vendors doing sketchy stuff
3:48 What AV to use? The defaults.
5:14 When to consider a thirdparty AV.
5:51 My dumb experiment, download malware.
6:46 Conclusion

Links:
Official FTC Statement and Settlement: https://www.ftc.gov/businessguidance...
https://thehackernews.com/2024/02/ftc...
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/22/24...
Most Wanted Malware: https://blog.checkpoint.com/research/...

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