Ex-Mozilla Firefox developer says anti-virus software does more harm than good

Ex Mozilla Firefox developer Robert O’Callahan put up a blog post outlining the problems with third party anti-virus software. According to the post, there is negligible evidence that anti-virus software improve security, and there is considerably evidence that shows that the anti-virus software actually harm the machines they are installed on. Bugs in anti-virus software open up additional vector attacks and anti-virus software developers in general do not follow standard security practices.

The problem is that anti-virus software tend to break browsers and other applications installed on the system. The invasive and poorly implemented code in anti-virus software interferes with the regular working of other software. Some new features on Firefox would not run because of anti-virus software that injects its own code into the browser process. At times anti-virus software have prevented updates, including important security updates. Anti-virus software make it difficult for browser developers and other software vendors from improving the security of their offerings.

Developers spend significant amounts of time addressing issues that arise because of anti-virus software, time and effort that could be investing in actually improving the security of the product. The problem is that the developers cannot openly speak out against anti-virus vendors because they need the cooperation from anti-virus companies if their software products experience any problem because of anti-virus software installed on the systems of the users.

The browser developers cannot ask users to stop using anti-virus software, because the developers will be blamed for anything bad that happens to the machine. If the browser performs badly because of the anti-virus software, the users blame the browser and not the anti-virus. Anti-virus plugins can make browsers incredibly slow and bloated. A perfectly good browser can hog the resources of the system because of anti-virus software .

Microsoft’s Windows Defender is a competent anti-virus solution, according to O’Callahan, and his advice to users is that they disable all third party anti-virus software and not pay for them as they do more harm than good. For users of old operating systems, such as Windows 7 or Windows XP, anti-virus software can make the systems marginally more secure.