this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Regarding desktop antivirus, it's often the case where it is not necessary to have. Windows has Windows Defender built-in, and other operating systems have other means to mitigate any type of viruses. There are actually reports of antivirus causing attacks because their hooks are so deep in the operating system.
Even trusted apps and app stores are prone to being malicious. The upstream packages that they use can have a malicious developer or insecure package, and it gets incorporated in the app, then distributed. Thats why it's important to use devices that get hardware/firmware updates to help protect against this. If a rootkit is installed, there is no way to ever get rid of it on your system.
Windows Defender is antivirus application, though, so how is it evidence that antivirus applications are pointless? Also, Defender wasn't always as good as it is. That's only a relatively recent thing.
Also, there are viruses/malware other than rootkits.