With apologies for a mini rant, based on [to me too frequent] complaints on the GOTD offer pages, and PURELY FWIW...
Users make a choice on what software they install, & it's their choice if they want to continue using it or not. When they make that 2nd choice they accept full responsibility for any problems they have using it. I use Win10 for a variety of reasons, find all sorts of faults with the OS, and am not shy of voicing my opinions on what Microsoft should & shouldn’t do developing the OS in the future. I can’t rightly blame Apple because Windows won’t run their apps, any more than I can blame Google because I can’t run Android apps – I knew that going in when I decided to run Windows, and if it’s anyone’s fault that I can’t run Apple or Android software, it’s mine.
That very same situation applies to GOTD and their use of their software wrapper, which most security software does not mind. There might have been some justified concern when GOTD first debuted the wrapper, since it surprised some people when their security software objected, but that was a long time ago. Since then everyone’s had plenty of time to replace problematic security software, and it’s grossly unfair to blame anyone else, i.e. GOTD, because they made a poor choice deciding what security software they run. And it really is poor security software at fault…
Pattern matching antivirus software At Best **May** on rare occasion be useful when it’s part of a security software suite, e.g. Bitdefender Total Security – security experts have said for years that antivirus software *on its own* is worse than no protection at all, since it opens up plenty of new avenues for attackers to exploit. The real protection provided by security software is monitoring what exactly running processes are doing. The GOTD wrapper Does Not prevent security software from seeing what the enclosed installation app is doing – it prevents it from seeing the real setup file, so it can’t perform pattern matching. IOW no big deal, and software that relies overmuch on pattern matching, i.e. antivirus software, provides far from optimal protection.
There's a LOT of security software available, plenty of different brands & models, some of it free, and some of it Very low cost on sale, e.g. I've been paying $8-$10/yr. for unlimited devices with McAfee & roughly $10/yr. for 5 devices with Bitdefender Total Protection. With Win10 Defender is free & now top rated. Some brands may be a bit shady - vice[.]com/en_us/article/qjdkq7/avast-antivirus-sells-user-browsing-data-investigation - while some brands may be overly stubborn, e.g. Kaspersky said for years it could not accommodate the GOTD wrapper, but then it turned out it could [a few years back I ran their free version in a VM with zero problems when it came to the GOTD wrapper]. AV-test[.]org gives an easy to read/use ranking, and every major brand offers free trials, so there’s little excuse not to use something GOTD friendly. Some users seem to believe that frequent false positives are a sign that their security software works -- it usually reflects the opposite.
That all said, I’m *only* being critical of the complaints themselves that folks make about the GOTD wrapper, which I think is totally unfair when it’s their choice that’s behind any inconvenience. I’m not saying anyone isn’t a great person – I’m only asking that they be fair.
