Civil Duty vs Malware

One-Click: Easy!

I’ve posted a screen capture of my most recent attempt to contribute to the eradication of malware. As a software User– especially users of Freeware, and Open-Source software– it is a Civil Duty, as a Citizen of the Network, to participate in such activity.

A system could have any one type, or multiple variations of the same category of anti-something software installed at the same time. Historically, Users have been discouraged from installing more than one anti-virus application on a system, and I am confident the tradition holds true today. More recent variants in the security software market, such as those labeled simply as anti-spyware, do not necessarily urge the user ensure his or her system is not already protected by a similar application, as might be developed by another software engineer.

Typically, Anti-this and Anti-that software periodically scans the system. Anti-malware, anti-spyware, anti-virus, network security, or even performance-improvement software tend to scan the system in different ways, a varying degrees of depth. It’s important to pay close attention to such settings, and avoid tweaking the default presets– unless you do know what you’re doing. Although I’ve written this article around a screen-capture I took, for recording the simplicity in reporting a False Positive, I want to stress that this is not a typical scenario. Typically, I let the anti-malware remove anything and everything it detects as suspicious– unless I am certain the software detected comes from a reputable company, and even in such case, I would re-scan the suspect files with other anti-malware, to see if I received the same results.

It is important to report new threats to anti-virus companies, but it is also important to report False-Positive detections, as illustrated here. If which you believe is not a true threat, please discriminate, and consider sending a report back to the Developers of the Software reporting the detection. And thank You for participating!