Because they're not part of the HN bubble and genuinely do need an additional program to stop them downloading random infected crap from MediaFire banner ads.

The amount of people who would open funnycat.jpg.exe is much larger than you think. No way are they reading Windows Defender popups with complicated words like "executable", they're gonna click okay and it's up to 3rd party virus protectors to stop that stuff with scary flashy warning popups.

> No way are they reading Windows Defender popups with complicated words like "executable", they're gonna click okay

Indeed. https://i.imgur.com/M4RNUHl.png from https://www.usenix.org/conference/enigma2016/conference-prog...

I use BitDefender, not because I'm an idiot as you implied, but simply because according to my research it's more efficient and catches more threats than Windows Defender.

When Win 95 and 98 was a thing antivirus programs were broadly recommended to normal users. I guess the habit lingers?

It is basically this. Windows has long since had an integrated firewall and system protection measures, including a file scanner. And back in the 95/98 days, browsers we're happy to let you execute virtually native code that could wreak all sorts of havoc (ActiveX, Flash, etc.)

Nowadays anti viruses are kind of like big intimidating security signs. They make the owner feel a sense of comfort while offering a bare minimum of value in terms of real security.

> They make the owner feel a sense of comfort while offering a bare minimum of value in terms of real security.

If only they provided a bare minimum value, because it's worse than that. Anti-viruses make the system horribly insecure, with their poorly written C/C++ programs running everything needlessly as root and parsing every data within its reach [1]. If that's not enough, they even tamper with browsers and interfere with genuine efforts to improve security [2].

Anti-viruses are scams that decrease security, with the possible exception of ClamAV. The whole concept is bad too. Installing some magic software can never make security threats go away.

[1]: https://ia801306.us.archive.org/26/items/SyScanArchiveInfoco...

[2]: https://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-...

Look, Lambda people subscribe to VPNs because YouTubers convinced them it’s the only way to be safe online, even if that’s an absurd claim. Antivirus companies have a similar business model.