The Symantec Scam

No Article, this is my opinion.

Lets take your average computer. It has a really large piece of software on it, called the Operating System. Now maybe thats Windows, or ...well..this actually only applies to windows... so we'll say you have Windows of some kind.

This Operating System , this Windows, has a couple of hundred files it needs in order to do its work.

Lets take your average virus writer. He's smart. He's knowledgable. He knows about windows . He knows that if he writes a virus to infect , say notepad , most people can do very nicely without notepad. It's such a tiny application , and most people have entire word processors or office packages on their system they never use it anyways. Infecting Notepad is pointless.

He knows that if he infects , say , the Internet Explorer, most everyone uses that (80% of all computer users, according to last survey). And he knows how a virus scanner / cleaner works.

He knows that a virus cleaner does not actually "clean" an infected file of a virus. It simply deletes the infected file (either putting it away in a virus vault, or outright deleting it...either way the file is no longer available for use). And he knows which files to infect such that if you were to "clean" the internet explorer, the absence of this file would cause it to suddenly work very poorly , or even simply stop working at all. He's now laughing at your feeble attempts to battle him. He's fourteen years old and this is fun.

Lets look at your average anti-virus company. Symantec (they make the norton anti virus product). They try to stop you from getting infected , it is true, because they know that , once you are infected there is no hope for you , you should reformat.
But the customers insist on trying.
So they will run their virus cleaner, which will do more harm than the actual virus did , explaining to the customer they're doing this at their own risk. And when everything breaks , the customer will try another virus scanner, shelling out another 50$ or more , and it will break even more things trying to "clean" the virus, because the customer doesn't understand that in the anti-virus world "clean" means "randomly erase files no matter how much damage it does, if you even suspect it might have a virus in it" And so eventually the Operating System (windows) crashes and won't boot anymore. And so you take it to a computer technician who reformats it all , and reinstalls windows from a clean disk , and charges you another 50$ and sends you on your way.
And then your girlfriend insists she must be able to go to her online gaming site because it's her favorite, despite the fact that it's most likely the place where you caught the virus in the first place, but she doesn't care thats your problem.
And two minutes after you get the computer home it's infected again.

I call this the Symantec scam for two reasons.

The only real path a virus has to get to your system is the Internet Explorer. If you're even halfway careful with your email , never running any programs friends send you etc, you'll never catch an email virus.

"Cleaning" is useless. You're doing more damage than the virus. The virus writers deliberately arrange it this way. But you don't tell the customers this. You just take their money , fail to explain what "cleaning" really means, and then tell them it was all at their own risk , don't blame them the virus writers are always coming up with new stuff.

The correct solution to a virus infection is to disconnect from the internet , back up your data files (the word processor documents you wrote, not the actual word processor, for example) to a cd writer , and then reformat and reinstall the operating system. Then all your programs. This is four to six hours work.
Or you can endure the Symantec Scam , waste days of time and potentially a few hundred dollars, and then do it anyways when it all comes to naught. ( or shell out even more money to have someone do it for you because you're now too tired)

"I can help you ! maybe ! Trust me ! I'm your only hope ! You do understand this is at your own risk ,right ? "

It's a scam.