It seems like the HN submission form truncated the # from the end of the URL I linked to, which linked to the relevant comment. I'll try that here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1441918#c82
and
I purchased a license of ESET Internet Security, and full disclosure: back in early 2017, I worked at an ESET-licensed reseller as a Presales and Support Engineer, so I know how to fine-tune it and all the ins and outs.
By nature, it's very lightweight (330 Mb RAM footprint), but you can fine-tune it even more if you want.
> And second, who here has ever had a virus in the past ten years?
We the people at HN are tech-savvy and of course will not get infected, but recently I spotted malware out-in-the-wild via Facebook Ads[0].
Your usual grandma/grandpa using the computer to connect with loved ones and play Candy Crush Saga will get infected, if they are not by now.
Some people tell me: "bUt tHaT'S BeCaUsE ThEy aRe vIsItInG WeIrD SiTeS," well, even if you stick to the common social media sites and usual news sites, you will get infected.
I cannot emphasize this enough, but you're responsible of your own computer so I will not proselytize you into purchasing AV software.
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[0]: https://twitter.com/IvanMontillaM/status/1604308301579051009
Firefox scored 89.5 ±1.7
Chromium scored 87.3 ±2.9
I guess that means Firefox did faster for those tests. I don't use Chrome or Chromium based browsers in general so I don't know how they compare in "feel".
I am on Linux.
A great example is Pytorch just recently had a supply chain attack, and installing the nightly version between December 25th and December 30th, 2022 - would result in your home directory getting uploaded including ssh keys.
Chrome also just had a 0 day 2022 - CVE-2022-3075
Pytorch supply chain attack via Triton 2022/2023 - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/pytorch-discl...
EDIT: Also there's a misconception that linux somehow doesn't get viruses - however the Pytorch attack affected linux users. Making a virus for windows gives you far more targets then linux, which is why they're far more common.
It also has a bug(?) which makes method calls 100x slower in PowerShell 7:
I may have some of the details wrong.
https://source.chromium.org/chromium/_/chromium/v8/v8.git/+/...
https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/performance-test-octob...
https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/home-windows/windows-10... (less useful..)
AV comparatives has some other tests also that might be of interest to HNers:
https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/uninstallation-test-20...
https://www.av-comparatives.org/tests/false-alarm-test-septe... (reason why you might not want to pick the fastest product..)
This can be a dangerous objective. There are already changes going into Windows 10+ regarding the OS scheduler [0]. Windows 11 is also noted as having an even more aggressive policy. How much longer before old games stop working correctly and we have to have MS-signed binaries to get 1ms timer resolution?
Obviously, we don't want to poll aggressively whenever we can avoid it, but there are also a lot of practical UX & technological reasons to have this capability.
[0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/timeapi/...
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/procthread/p...
Recent versions of Firefox allow you to block some stuff like that: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/identify-problems-third...
Though it's possible they use different code injection tricks to make blocking impossible. (You can't block Defender from listening to events for example)
Whether this provides any meaningful security is questionable unless you pair it with filesystem isolation to prevent malicious programs from modifying config files / bashrc / etc. Meanwhile it does make legit uses of ptrace more annoying.
[0] https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/security/Yama.txt