We read that in Windows:
Running without anti-virus tools is suicide expecially if you use that virus spreader called Outlook (lookout).
I was using MS-DOS and Windows from 1991 until about one month ago. I never used an anti-virus tool to check a Windows program, I never used an anti-virus daemon, I routinely downloaded stuff from the net, and I was never affected by any malicious software. Friends did use antivirus software and were affected. I find it hard to believe that a Windows program could be affected by virus and still manage to run. A trojan is another matter, but their avoidance is pretty simple -- as long as you use your brain, and not just antivirus software. "Ah," you may be thinking. "You may be an idiot when it comes to Linux, but you probably knew what you were doing in Windows." Maybe. But my wife (using Win2k) doesn't. She hasn't a clue. But she isn't running any virus protection stuff either. Her friends' computers periodically get sick and need laborious rehabilitation; hers doesn't. How so? Because, like mine, her 'Doze is set up to display file extensions. If she's sent any file that doesn't end in .JPG, she trashes it. If any user of Windows can neither understand how to protect herself from so-called viruses nor follow simple instructions on protection, I don't think that she can run Linux either. I'm all in favor of Linux. (That's why I switched to it.) But Linux advocacy won't be helped by scaremongering about Windows.