Automatic updates in anti virus programs have caused me problems for years. On many occasions customers would call because their e-mail programs couldn’t connect to the mail server. I’d spend a couple of minutes checking the obvious stuff-like are they connected to the Internet. Then the next step would be to turn off anti virus and/or firewall software. Like magic that alway seemed to fix the problem, the customers almost always asked, “Why did it just now stop working, I didn’t change anything?”.
Those un-noticed and un-asked for changes these programs make are not always as harmless as they would like you to believe. Just last week a McAfee antivirus update wrongly identified a critical Windows system file as a low-threat virus and removed it. Apparently thousands of computers refused to boot properly, lost their network connections, or had both problems.
In my mind I can see all those people looking at their computers and thinking, what happened I didn’t change anything.
Gone are the days when McAfee and Norton ruled the anti-virus industry. Today, there are more antivirus you can choose from which are more cheaper and less resource-hungry.