Are viruses common or rare?

Question

Malware

in the early 2000s, when I was small, I surfed the internet and picked up all sorts of viruses that renamed files, deleted files, redirected them to websites, and so on ... A few years later, I already started using antivirus programs, used all free and hacked ones, etc. etc., sometimes windows popped up, saying a suspicious site, or a left Internet connection was suspected, a virus was found in a downloaded file, etc. But there were also periods when I didn’t use antivirus programs for years, and recently I again downloaded, did a full check for several hours, and found nothing, although I often climb torrents, download movies, games, etc. I scanned the PC with two antiviruses, avast and kaspersky, and then downloaded the drWeb ​​utility, pressed the vulnerability scan, and after 30 minutes nothing was found again.
Is it even possible that, having been using a PC for about a year, without an antivirus program, downloading toys and movies, I didn’t pick up anything? Why didn't any antivirus find anything? How safe is it to sit without an antivirus program now?

Answer 1

A virus is a program installed without your knowledge and engaged in activities that are not necessary or even harmful to the owner of the PC. The most harmless viruses are adware, the main income from which the attacker receives from displaying ads, for example, by replacing advertising identifiers in the browser. A correctly written virus should not affect the system in any way (except when sabotage is an end in itself, for example, lockers and file encryptors), but unfortunately this is the main reason why viruses notice - they have errors that cause regular programs to fail .
I repeat, the absence of an antivirus reaction does not mean that you do not have a virus, this is the first and most important thing that users of antivirus programs should know about viruses.
Through draconian methods such as forcedvaccination of the update and sending to the Microsoft server (more precisely, a lot of companies do this) a list of all running applications, viruses have become a rarity. At the cost of 'freedom', but this is a philosophical question, the discussion of which is not welcome here, and every thesis in it will be met with hostility by every second person.

Answer 2

Possibly. I've been without antivirus for 10 years already, everything seems to be fine
On torrents, normal, there are no viruses by definition.
The virus is launched by the user who downloads it .... if you don't do this, where does the virus come from?)
Well, in general, browsers have been improved, they the main slag is blocked automatically

Answer 3

It all depends primarily on the user.
It all depends on the personal experience of a particular user, his vigilance and understanding how it all works and what comes from.
I personally encountered viruses on my computer a couple of times only at the beginning of mastering the computer in the early 2000s. Moreover, it was a real virus that added itself to .exe files and self-replicated on all media.
Then, after ≈15 years of using antiviruses, I realized that during this time it had never been useful to me and personally I was of no use for it, it only eats resources. I ended up tearing it down and haven't used it in years. Sometimes (every few months) I run CureIT from under PE, but I have never found anything yet.
But according to the experience of working in the SC for more than 10 years, many users manage to catch malware on their computers regularly and in large quantities. Moreover, the presence of an antivirus on the computer is not an obstacle for this, because. users themselves often disable it or allow the launch of something that is malicious.
In the presence of straight hands, the antivirus is not particularly needed, and if the hands are crooked initially, then it will not save you from viruses.
Yes, and viruses, at least those that are in everyday life, are now smaller and more reminiscent of student crafts. Most often, so-called "viruses" are not even viruses. The most terrible "beast" is a cryptographer. And I haven’t seen something capable of self-replication for a long time, and I haven’t seen those that can infect files, and not be independent programs for even longer.

Answer 4

That's right, there are practically no viruses. Probably because they are now easily intercepted by antiviruses. But the number of other malicious programs has not decreased, the same Trojans that rely on the carelessness and negligence of the user. It got to the point that now viruses are called any malicious code, including Trojans.