People without common sense as a group could be a large number of people; and to stop a large number of people using or owning a computer would be over the top, agreed.

What I’m actually saying here, in essence, is that people without common sense NEED anti-virus etc software; so that their system finds and notifies them of that virus that got in when they opened the attachment or clicked the link to the malicious website, etc.

Yes I use Outlook Express because I like Outlook Express. I am fully aware of its security vulnerabilities, and therefore I know what to do and what not to do with regard to it.

I’m not saying I’ve never had a virus: In fact I’ve had more than one this year, (Not all due to Outlook Express.) but none of them stayed on my computer long, because I frequently virus/malware scan with a number of products, I am very careful; I don’t open suspicious-looking attachments or click on dubious links to obscure websites, etc. I am also behind a router as a hardware-firewall, which helps too, as the criminal’s machines can’t find the infected port to relay their spam and porn through, should the system become infected, neither can they communicate with their malware to find an alternative way in. (The router itself assumes my ip address which would otherwise be my computer’s ip address if I weren’t behind the router.)

- However let’s use the fantasy scenario that I’m computer-illiterate and don’t really have much if any of a clue re. computers and the internet:

I have a computer, I run Windows XP, I use Outlook Express. I’ve been to a number of sites that tell me I should use anti-virus, and a friend who is in the know has advised me to use a particular effective anti-virus + anti-spyware solution. I’m behind a router: My ISP advised me of that. The anti-malware software automatically-updates every time I use the computer, and it notifies me of any infection I let in due to my lack of technical prowess and knowledge of just what it is that I shouldn’t click on: Therefore, 98 percent of the time my computer is virus-free. I apply all the updates that Microsoft produce and distribute through Automatic Update; even though I honestly have very little idea what they do and I don’t understand all the technical-jargon associated with them.

As a user I’m fairly safe; even though, in this scenario, I’m rather clueless when it comes to computers.

Back to reality; and such a person who uses their computer observing the correct security precautions, even though pretty clueless from a geek standpoint, is relatively safe; both in themselves and to others.

It’s the wreckless, couldn’t-care-less, clueless people that are worrying; and as a result of their possibly deliberate irresponsibility, they should be disallowed from owning a computer IMO.

Of course that probably won’t happen. Call me a fascist if you like; but why should everyone suffer due to the irresponsibility of the few?

We obviously don’t live in an “ideal world”. If we did, this post wouldn’t need be to be written, b/c in an ideal world, we wouldn’t *need* anti-virus software.

And sorry to have to bring this up again, but Outlook Express is also a “security risk”, like Windows 98 (regardless of how many updates or security fixes it has) but you use Outlook Express still, correct? Pot, Kettle?

They shouldn’t, in an ideal world, be allowed to own and use a computer; however they are allowed to do so and theycontinue to do so with reckless abandon.

No matter how many times and in how many ways you try to tell them that:

They shouldn’t uninstall their antivirus software in the hope that their computer will be less cluttered and run faster; no matter what language you tell them not to open attachments from people they don’t know in Nigeria, not to respond to their “bank’s” request for their password and account details, that the security fix emailed to them by “Microsoft” that they installed has caused their system to join a botnet, that the outdated pirated copy of Windows 98 they’re running is a security risk – especiallywhen they ignore all published updates and patches because they allegedly “clutter the computer’s drive”…

- It just goes in one ear and out the other. Who are we to try to tell them how to run their own computer? – I mean the computer which they share with several criminal gangs and twice as many spammer networks.