Do you recommend anti-malware to your family?

I don’t any longer. My mom needed something more powerful than a Chromebook and she wanted Microsoft Office.

I solved the security side of things by locking down the system and giving her access to a non-admin account.

I removed access to IE and Edge, added Firefox with uBlock and Bitwarden, and removed the ability to add/remove add-ons.

I added ClamAV to scan Outlook attachments and scheduled weekly scans just in case.

No complaints or security incidents for about a year now.

I documented the process of doing this here https://noteaureus.org/post/tutorials/sysadmin/win4unsavvy/

It's amazing how we went from most computers having either Norton or McAfee installed and we went through cycles where other anti-virus software such as total AV, Avast and BitDefender becoming contenders.

Now the majority of people (myself included) simply use Defender and ensure its upto date.

I put everyone on Macs (or iPads, depending on use cases) and iPhones. Have had no malware issues. For those who are older and need robust tech support handholding, I pay for AppleCare so they get unlimited Genius Bar support.

I've found ad blockers to be the best malware defense for my older relatives. Specifically ublock origin and nextdns. After installing those, virus/malware infections have dropped to pretty much zero.

I recommend Windows [1] and the default protection. The third party anti-malware/virus industry has two segments. Enterprise that runs anti-malware/virus for compliance and best industry practice ass covering.

The other is malware for consumer machines. Every behavior of third party anti-virus/malware software for consumers is indistinguishable from viruses and malware...including holding machines hostage for cash payments.

[1] The current version.

Windows with the included defender.

The days of Norton and others have long been over from my POV.

I purchase Malwarebytes for my parents for Christmas every year and it's saved me so much time troubleshooting or recovering files from my parents' PCs.

No. My grandmother used to pay for Norton and used Windows. When her laptop started to slow down, I slapped Neverware's CloudReady on there (a ChromiumOS distribution) and she's never had problems. Never needed Norton again either. I did the duty of putting uBlock Origin and Safe Browsing on the browser. Can't recommend the OS enough, that laptop would be painfully slow today if it were still running Windows 10.

My family can be best described as mostly clueless if it comes to virus/malware/phishing threats.

The typical setup is:

  Gmail web interface for e-mail
  Windows with the default defender install
  Malware filter on DNS level (nextdns, Adguard or even through ISP)

Nothing bad happened in the last couple of years.

Mom uses a Laptop with Linux and it is only for surfing the interwebs and occasionally printing and scanning.

If you use Windows don't worry too much. Whatever you do, you will end up with a virus, and the worst part is that you probably won't even realize it.

My relatives only needed a web browser to check their emails and some other basic tasks, so a Chromebox was the simple worry-free choice.