Being virus and malware-free

We've all probably been infected with viruses and/or some type of malware at some point. Well, let me clarify, those of us that use Windows. I migrated from Windows XP to Fedora Linux about 2 years ago on 3 separate PCs in my home, and since then I've had zero maintenance on those machines. I had used Linux for over 10 years previously, but I was never able to make a complete switch from Windows on my personal PCs because there was always a piece of software missing that I needed. Finally though, Linux has matured enough so that switching was made into reality.

I didn't have much malware previous to this transition, but I had been hit a couple of times over the years. I also used to use Internet Explorer once in a while and as such, practically invited malware to my Windows XP PC. But, over the last 2 years, I have realized how much time I have saved by simply not having to deal with viruses, malware, and the like. Because those problems are like a double-edged sword. On one side, you have the malware itself which will take over your PC and can wreak havoc, even completely corrupt the PC so that it needs to be re-installed from scratch. On the other side, there is the task of constantly dealing with installing and keeping antivirus, spyware, and all of those scanning programs up to date. This is a pretty big burden, especially for corporate clients where you have hundreds or even thousands of PCs. These scanning programs are all well and good, but they seem to be getting more bloated and complicated, and malfunction more often. Symantec Antivirus had always been my first choice for its effectiveness and stability. However, in the recent 4-5 years, it's been getting more problematic. I've needed to help Windows users fix Symantec Antivirus, both the personal and corporate editions. And now with Symantec Endpoint Protection, it seems that problems are even worse. Things like the update engine randomly breaking and preventing updated definitions from getting downloaded, installation problems, and bogging down the PC so much that the user can hardly do anything. These are all problems that I've pinpointed to Symantec Endpoint Protection. The solution? Everybody likes to jump up and say "upgrade your hardware" as a first reaction. OK, go ahead, but there's a cost involved as well as time to migrate files, etc. Eventually this is necessary, but it's not always necessary to upgrade hardware as the first step.

So, in the end, you don't think about what you don't see, and in this case this I'm talking about malware. Being virus and malware-free is like a breath of fresh air, and peace of mind knowing that you can focus on using the computer rather than worrying about what things you can and can't do with it.