Robert O’Callahan’s words about the current state of antivirus software and his suggestion to adopt only Windows Defender have brought to the surface a conflict that has been brewing for a long time. The differences between web browser developers and antivirus developers are enormous, and now it is the turn of Justin Schuh, an engineer who works on security of Google Chrome. According to his words, Windows Defender is the only one that behaves correctly, as it does not break any security mechanism in Chrome.
The software world already has too many examples of debates that turned into heated discussions and then fell into the category of thermonuclear flamewar. The truth is that nobody benefits from a conflict with those characteristics, and the ideal would be to stop it before it escalates, to find a robust solution. So far, everything seems to indicate that the most recent debate with flamewar potential is the one that faces web browsers developers against the main security solutions. The first shot was fired by Robert O’Callahan, a former Mozilla employee who directly recommended ignoring all third-party antivirus software on Windows 8.x or higher and keeping Windows Defender.
Now, the second shot comes from an unexpected front. Through several tweets on his personal account, engineer Justin Schuh, in charge of security at Google Chrome, followed O’Callahan’s line by highlighting that Windows Defender is the only antivirus with good behavior. What does that mean? Basically, that it does not break any of the security mechanisms integrated into Chrome, something that does happen quite often with other antivirus programs that install extensions or add their own certificates. Schuh also said that Windows Defender adheres to an apparent rule of “do no harm,” and other colleagues confirmed that they “have the data” to back up those statements.
Of course, this leaves the doors open for more engineers working on other browsers (Opera, Vivaldi, Safari, Edge, and Internet Explorer) to add their opinions. Personally, I think it is unusual to find something like a united front in security matters, but it is evident that web browser developers have accumulated a bit of frustration over time. Another thing we also need are answers from those who create antivirus software. Why do such differences exist? How can they be fixed? The integrity of our digital lives is at stake.
