Do you think anti-virus companies deliberately create and spread viruses so people will buy their 'cure'?
366912
Hell yeah man...their all after the big bucks and trying to capitalize on the growing virus/protection problem is a great way to do it.
59116
Most people create viruses for a challenge to themselves to see if they can get by firewalls, anti-virus, and other security settings.  Some do it just to be a pain.  Others do it for malicious reasons like stealing passwords and personal information from your PC!
339839
mostly companies of anti-virus software \nto sell their software better
388308
They have a product called System Mechanic which has similar tools, but is not bundled witht the Antivirus or Internet Security suite.  So you would be buying two products.  The product is very good.
842007
seriously why do you want the key for virus bursters? its a virus that wants you to pay money to "remove" spyware that doesnt exist by keeping virus bursters you are pretty much putting a bullentin online saying "hey hackers come get my personal info out of my computer because its unprotected" well good look with virus bursters dumb @$$ ;)
138312
Traditionally, writing and distributing malware was about impressing your friends and the hacker community.  But things are changing.\n\nToday's malware writers are moving to for-profit opportunities.  As stated in the original post, they use malicious software to gather information from consumers and businesses to make money.  Money making activities include criminal activites based on social engineering, identity theft, and theft of intellectual property.  Once in possession of information of value to other criminal elements, they sell it for a profit.  Again, the for-profit motive is taking over from the pursuit of bragging rights.
35146
As joseflip said, there are treatments to slow down viruses.  Do a study on viruses; it's fascinating.  They're not even alive!  Purely biologically mechanical (mindless and instinctless; they just do what they do), they do their work by invading cells, multiplying, and going out to other cells...very sneaky.  Because if you want to destroy the virus...you more than likely have to destroy cells as well, and that's where our problem lies.\nThe best example, I think, is HIV.  There are several treatments to keep this horrible disease "at bay," but I *don't think* there are *cures* for any viral diseases.
1018742
Definitely.  What we don't know won't hurt us but makes them wealthier.  If you could get away with making money off of sick people and putting item in medications and food to make them sicker...would you do it?\nSome will say yes because they are Greedy.\nThat is why there are conspiracies...there is always more money  on one end of it.
65416
Definitely the easiest way is to grab something that someone else has written and modify it a little.  In the "biz", people that do this are known as "script kiddies" since they don't have any real knowledge but only how to follow a script.\n\nMost more "original" viruses exploit an existing problem with an existing program or operating system.  Quite often it's due to a "buffer overrun" vulnerability, where the OS allows an application to overwrite memory that doesn't belong to it.  If you're careful, you can overwrite the memory in such a way that the system will interpret it as operating instructions and execute it.  Once you can get it to do that, the system is pwned!!1!
757588
you trying to give us a virus?
145961
Mostly, people who are too smart for their own good.  They get bored and come up with viruses to entertain themselves.  Some create viruses to test companies' security systems.  A few, do it for financial gain (phishing)
24041
Advertising.  Norton has been around for a couple decades and uses heavy advertising to trick the average user into believing that their product is better.  Which in my experience, it is the worst on the market.  It's slow and expensive.\n\nHere's one example.  I had a computer infected with a brand new virus.  Norton didn't catch it.  I manually quarrentined the file, and called Symantec to see if they wanted it for testing.  They told me flat out "NO!" because I was using a 1 year old version of their software.  I was agast.  I then e-mailed the file to AVG and they had a protect for it in a few hours.  On their FREE version none the less.\n\nAVG Rocks!  Even their paid product which is about $35 for 2 years of protection, is hands down the best.  I recommend getting the paid version to keep these guys doing the awesome job they are doing!\n\nP.S. I tried the super expensive Trend Micro once.  It was also very slow and didn't catch virus' that AVG found.  Go figure.  AVG is good, real good.
864867
yes, but beware of viruses
885929
yes go to EBAY  you can buy cracked version of  Symantec antivirus. everyone will let you buy from there  they sell cracked software on EBAY
584644
It's virtually impossible to make a computer that can't get a virus.  However, it might be possible to do that if everything but personal files and the like are on ROM, not EPROM, but pure, hard coded ROM.  That way, nothing can be changed but files, and any virus would be incapable of making lasting affects, unless there's a way it can damage hardware.  If this computer you're referring too is like that, I probably wouldn't buy it if I was a multi-billionaire, except as maybe an oddity, and you couldn't update software except removing some part or so that has the outdated software and put the replacements in.  There _MIGHT_ be another way or so to be almost as virus proof, but I don't know if it's worth betting on.  Routers, to my knowledge, use firewalls to protect, and firewalls protecting an IP network from stuff on the Internet can probably be worked around by using unblocked ports or the like, for example.  I'm not a hacker though, I don't know everything.  Where can I find out more about this computer?
12481
The herbal and natural remedies have had a encouraging rate of success and work very well for many people afflicted with the virus. \n\nYou cannot patent natural ingredients and therefore you cannot make money or add any value by marketing under a Pharma brand.\n\nSeveral of these alternatives are described in the source page below.
2496
Depends on the company.\n\nThe AVG and AntiVir free anti-virus software is given away free to individuals to advertise the business versions of those products.\n\nA lot of open source software (gcc, xemacs, etc.) is given away free and the programmers charge for a manual teling you all the cool tricks under the surface. Red Hat, SUSE and IBM all support Linux, so can invest in the software on the back of massive support contracts with people running Linux.\n\nSoftware such as Firefox is supported by selling merchandise and by getting a cut from Google for having the Google bar installed by default and Google as the default home page.\n\nOpera's free edition used to be supported by adverts in the browser, for which they were payed. Many small companies go down this route.\n\nThere are also some dodgy pieces of software which you can download for free that install rubbish onto your computer, that either dials premium rate numbers using your modem, or steals your information to sell to criminals. These tend to be either games or pornography based downlaods, but can be anything. So long as you know where you're downloading from, you can avoid these.