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protection racket? Don't use anti-virus software! Perhaps you think this is crazy. With all the "your system is unsafe/unprotected" messages that appear unsolicited on your screen, how can you possibly survive without virus protection? Well, there are a few simple precautions to follow and then everything should be fine. I have been a very active computer user, downloading and installing software, copying and trading files in the heart of compu-promiscuous Silicon Valley since 1984. In that time the number of virus infections I have had on any of my many computers: 1. In ~1994 a virus broke a floppy disk containing "Joe Montana Football". During that time, I have not used anti-virus software, but for occasionally getting paranoid and running a free online scan of my system.

The first step to surviving without anti-virus is anti-spyware. If you are a regular user with a connection to the web, you have spyware on your system. Don't confuse spyware with viruses! Very different! But while few who follow these steps will experience virus infection, the problem of spyware (also known as addware) will make you think you have a virus. For spyware there are many free simple applications (for instance spybot.org) with which a quick weekly scan will keep your system clean.
The second step in surviving without anti-virus software is to keep all your personal files in one location and then back them up periodically to an external hard drive. This precaution has saved me 0 times in 23 years from viruses or other problems, but I know people who have spilled drinks on their laptops and lost novels they had written. External hard drives are cheep and worth it for the piece of mind.
The third step in surviving without anti-virus (and the first step actually dealing with viruses) is to set your "folder options" to allow you to view your "file extensions". This means that after every file there is a .jpg or a .exe or some combination of 2-4 letters which tells you what type of file it is. A virus, at this point in time, will almost always be a .exe or .dll, but can not be a .jpg, .mov, .html, .doc, .png etc. If you don't recognize any of these abbreviations that is fine, in time you will. What's most important is that viruses very often pretend to be one type of file, when they are actually another. For instance "greatphoto.exe" is not a photo, it is a virus. Even greatphoto.jpg.exe is still a virus (seen this before). If you receive any such a suspicious file (usually attached to an email) don't open it, don't even copy it to your system. Walla! You are virus safe!
Is it really that simple? Well, maybe I am just really lucky, but it has worked for me since 1984.
One thing to be careful of, besides viruses, is Trojans. Trojans are "Trojan horse" hidden programs which large software companies hire programmers to write and then include with illegally cracked or unlicensed software made available for download via bit torrent bulliton boards and the like. Now if the Trojan simply informed the company that you had downloaded the same cracked version that they intentionally made available containing the Trojan, then you could claim entrapment in response to any lawsuit they might hope to bring against you. So, what a Trojan does is searches to find any other unlicensed software and then inform the mega software corporations legal department, who may or may not decide that it is worth their while to prosecute. So, if you download and install cracked or illegal software (low estimates for the US suggest that around %25 of all software is pirated), take note that without virus-protection or at lest the opportune virus scan, you may very well be harboring a Trojan.

Learn more about this author, Jonathan Collyer.
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