Software that does nothing (or worse)
Remember McAfee antivirus?
It comes from the time when regular computer users were “more serious” about security: you had to install some third party anti-virus software because there was really was no alternative.
Problem with such software, however, is the conflict of interests—vendors who sell you such software are interested in their users being scared that their computers might get compromised. What’s worse is that most of the AV (antivirus) software is very poorly optimised or is bloated on purpose—to prove a point of how important it is, that it does “real work”.
You know, a bit like how to have to burn electricity with cryptocurrencies to prove that you did the work.
It is not just anti-virus software, however. Sometimes even vendor-bundled software can take hostage of your own system. The only part of Thai that’s missing from classifying as malware is asking for a ransom.
Other times supposedly good software like for DRM protection (eg Denuvo, which is notorious for affecting performance) can interfere so much with your system that’s it makes the product it is supposed to protect—unusable, or at the very least less enjoyable to use.
But the worst offender is when external software acts as if it is the king of your system, watching over every process running or even injecting itself into other running processes:
I wonder if the lack of the backlash is caused by the fact that people are unaware or because there are “no other alternatives”?
Look, I’m not suggesting turning to piracy and circumventing “the law”, however, history shows that people tend to turn to other venues when the ecosystem becomes too hostile.
https://youtu.be/Imf-QeQCexk