McAfee should also be banned. That thing is near impossible to remove.
But is not Russian, just like Instagram is not Chinese.
just like Instagram is not Chinese
Do you mean tiktok? Because it’s quite a bit more Russian than Instagram is Chinese unless there’s some crazy zuck is owned by China conspiracy I’m unaware of.
McAfee is not Russan, just like Instagram is not Chinese (I thought it was clear enough).
Yes it’s a clear reference to TikTok, which I don’t like for many many reasons, but none of those reasons is why it was banned, it’s because it’s Chinese.
Oh I understand now. I thought you were saying Kaspersky not McAfee. I didn’t think they were saying McAfee was Russian, just absolute garbage bordering malware.
It crossed that border a long, long time ago
To be fair, he provided instructions.
I had a laptop with it preinstalled, when I wasn’t a Linux user yet.
That video by late John McAffee was good. Even though he was a conspiracy theorist from the most clueless kind of libertarians - that kind who think they can go to a Latin American country with corrupt law enforcement and feel like alpha there. I mean, even if they can, one shouldn’t mix up tourism and immigration, as they say in Russian.
Avast Antivirus should be banned too, they did a lot of shady shit
i find it quite easy to remove…why is it that hard in your opinion?
Not to give too much away. I’ve had to remove consumer and enterprise versions before.
How enterprise is supposed to go is you get the deletion key. Uninstall restart the machine and it should be gone. Except that didn’t always happen. So you would do it again which sometimes worked or McAfee says the deltion key is now wrong, probably because it didn’t verify the uninstall. So you had to delete certain files in it’s installation folder run regular windows uninstall that hopefully finally kills it. I think at some point a downloaded uninstaller was used but I don’t really remember.
Consumer was an “easier” uninstall mostly cus we had a script. Try windows uninstall normally or if that doesn’t work get the McAfee uninstaller online, run in command line with options (most of the time it was required and not doing so was an extra unessicsry step). You also had to check other places to make sure you got everything (it was a while ago I forgot what and where) because McAfee still sometimes just keeps running in the background doing nothing (hopefully) but hogging reasources.
Was a while ago so for all I know McAfee got it’s shit together, but I would be surprised if they did.
Even on the consumer side, McAfee has historically been hard to uninstall. It would do shit like leave an installer after uninstallation, so it would automatically reinstall the next time you rebooted. After running Windows’ built in uninstaller, you still have to go manually remove files to prevent it from just adding itself back again.
Seems reactionary, but maybe not
Not really https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/technology/kaspersky-lab-antivirus.html
Very creative how Kaspersky used SEO to hide this story. When searching you have to exclude all of their sites to find it.
Not everyone has a NYT subscription: https://web.archive.org/web/20180102011635/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/technology/kaspersky-lab-antivirus.html
Thanks, the article was accessible for me so I thought it would be also for others.
Thanks for the link. The article is a whole lot of nothingburger. The entire premise of the article is that Kaspersky works as intended (just as any other security software) to flag files with certain phrases. Therefore, it can be used to find classified markings. Therefore, Kaspersky is bad… What?
So we should just ban all security software?
Why is it so hard to find a single piece of evidence that Kaspersky fucked up, or that their software has something in particular that is more risky compared to other security software. Anyone with more knowledge can explain plz?
Sounds like there is some other motive for doing this. Or they found something they aren’t willing to tell us. But why?
From the article:
Mr. Wardle’s curiosity was piqued by recent news that Russian spies had used Kaspersky antivirus products to siphon classified documents off the home computer of an N.S.A. developer, and may have played a critical role in broader Russian intelligence gathering.
From the “recent news” article mentioned above:
Government officials, who would speak of the classified details of the case only on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Pho took the classified documents home to help him rewrite his resume. But he had installed on his home computer antivirus software made by Kaspersky Lab, a top Russian software company, and Russian hackers are believed to have exploited the software to steal the documents, the officials said.
Honestly, I agree, it’s a serious accusation against Kaspersky with very scant details and allegations made by off-the-record “officials”. Having said that, just because they didn’t present any compelling evidence doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. In the words of Carl Sagan, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” I’m not sure where that leaves us though lol. Honestly, I don’t trust Kaspersky with my data any less that with any of the other big antivirus companies. I guess it makes sense they would want antivirus software with CIA/NSA backdoors over alternatives though :p
The entire premise of the article is that the Russian government can and has used Kaspersky’s access to perform espionage operations against the United States.
That absolutely is not a nothingburger. Russia is a hostile power and banning software a hostile power is actively using to attack you is perfectly legitimate behavior. This isn’t “malware is using a file transfer application instead of rolling their own”. It’s “this is an application that by definition relies on absolute trust in the good faith of the provider, that is compromised by an enemy state”.
Sorta.
Kaspersky has had some really shifty behavior in the past and even appeared to be working in concert with Russian govt, so imo this is a long time coming.
The timing, however, is reactionary.
what antivirus are the cool kids using these days? i feel like whenever i finally settle on one it ends up embroiled in this or that scandal
Windows Defender + uBlock Origin with more filter lists + brain.exe in free tier
Tbh, uBlock Origin + brain.exe has been carrying the heaviest load for years for me. Windows Defender would catch 80% of the occasional slips where brain.exe wanted some risks, too.
Never heard of brain.exe could I get some more info and maybe an official link?
They mean themselves, their brain.
Oh no, not at all. First, you need to download the dependencies tho. Start with downloading more ram.
Ah, the blinker fluid of the computer world.
Welp, now I feel dumb haha
Built in Windows anti virus and don’t be stupid
Common sense.
does that have a free tier or only paid plans
I think it’s region locked so good luck finding it. I don’t recommend pirating it because they usually contain viruses.
Nothing replaces common sense, but I’ve been using ESET for years now and have been really happy. Just the AV mind you, none of the other security suite bs.
The only real answer I’ve ever got from PC nerds is: None. You don’t need it. Just don’t be stupid. Easy.
Made me super uneasy when I was getting my first PC lmao
If you’re using Windows, the built in AV (Windows Defender) is actually pretty great. Maybe run Malware Bytes every now and then, (as in, install Malware Bytes, run it, then immediately uninstall it again). Between those two (and healthy browsing habits, like using an adblocker, not downloading random .exes, etc) will keep you protected. No AV in the world will be able to fully defend against bad browsing habits, so it all really comes down to that.
But this is Lemmy, so you’re bound to get buried in “just switch to Linux cuz Windows is a virus” stuff. And while that may be true, it’s clearly not the answer to your question.
I use Linux and only install software from the official distro repository + verified flatpaks. No av, no worries.
Get he out lest he be ready to drop to your knees and gibe praise to the righteous AUR as it doth demand.
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I use linux
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reactionary nonsense just as it was when trump did it.
especially considering eugene has no love for the kgb.
(source: worked for kaspersky usa from 2011-2014 and have met him multiple times when he visited)
The only thing that would worry me is that he doesn’t have to love the FSB (used to be KGB), he just has to love not being thrown out of a window enough to comply with whatever they may wish, like oh say a Russian state owned Trojan not being detected by it or something. Not that they’re definitely doing that, but the possibility isn’t 0%.
I mean it’s basically the same reason I don’t trust much of the US based proprietary software, just %s/FSB/CIA/g, the only real reason to trust one over the other is if you trust either agency more than the other IMO, otherwise distrust both.
especially considering eugene has no love for the kgb.
That may be a weird way to say he has lots of love for SVR (external intelligence service) or police K department, but not FSB.
Like that conversation in the “Sneakers” movie about FBI, CIA and NSA.
Only national spyware is allowed
This.
Most of the tech stack is american controlled and that is a security and privacy risk to everybody. From instruction set architecture to control over the social media. To American enemies, American allies… american’s themselves nobody is safe… probably the those that are best at mitigating said risk or take any steps at all are the American enemies.
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