Mozilla Ex warns: 'Do not use third-party antivirus'

Robert O'Callahan was an engineer for Mozilla, the company that follows the development of the Firefox browser. Over the past few days it has jumped to hit the headlines for a flippant remark about the antivirus market, in his view software able to "poison the software ecosystem" and which does not recommend any use. O'Callahan stresses that simply use the integrated solution of Microsoft Windows, Windows Defender, and uninstall the other applications if they are already present.

To motivate the statement the former engineer Mozilla writes that anti-virus developers do not follow the "standard safety practices", a factor that instead Microsoft takes more seriously:

"The AV poison the software ecosystem because their invasive and poorly implemented code makes it difficult to introduce the different security measures for the browser developers and to other generic developers."

Because of these problems it can happen also that anti-virus affect the performance of other applications on your computer, leading users to believe that your problems are due to the software themselves. May, in the concrete, block important updates or inhibit some features without much notice. According to the coach:
"Many times the anti-virus blocking Firefox updates preventing A security fix installation. Most of the time it takes the developer in the drafting of the code is spent on problems caused by anti-virus, time that could be used to introduce even more direct improvements as regards the security of the software ".

In the past the anti-virus was a necessary condition of any computer, because Windows did not have too many security solutions available were not effective. With the introduction of Windows Defender the situation has changed drastically, however, we can not move away from the grip of extreme position O'Callahan which considers, in a manner certainly provocative, only the developer's point of view, or power user.

The anti-viruses in general have gone through a particularly difficult period in recent years, especially after they have been some zero-day vulnerabilities discovered on 20 products by Symantec. AVG also had to undergo some charges on pretty lax privacy policies, through which he could sell to a third party history research and online browsing habits of its users.

On the other side there are Microsoft's efforts to integrate into the operating system all the essentials to protect users against external attacks, as a reliable and guaranteed upgrade policy for years by the release of a new version.  The update should arrive in April, Microsoft will introduce a Windows Defender Security Center, and the company has over time increased the annual investment linked to the field of security.To support the point of view of Robert O'Callahan there are other members of the tech world, even the direct competition. Justin Schuh, engineer at work on Chrome, confirmed the position O'Callahan writing that: "The anti-virus are my biggest obstacle in delivering to users a truly secure browser."