Give it a funeral, it's half buried already

from here and here (image source)

If you want to know of a good product to prevent this from happening, I suggest a vacuum cleaner rather than antivirus. Antivirus cleaning has more to do with disinfection, and unless you believe in the concept of "clean dirt", no kind of disinfection is going to help here.

A victim of some security marketing joker

from here and here

Years ago the catchphrase Antivirus Is Dead gained some popularity in security circles, despite my best efforts to fight it. Apparently it ultimately lead to the rebranding of the technology, so in a way the phrase became true, but only in the sense that the terminology isn't used anymore. What's more, the upstarts who started the whole thing failed to take market dominance away from the incumbents (as anyone could have predicted), so I figured why not rub their noses in it with this subtle modification to their own catch phrase. "Antivirus" Is Dead. Two little quotation marks can drastically change the meaning.

What could possibly go wrong?

from here and here (image source)

This gentleman is demonstrating something far more elaborate than footguns, but it is essentially the same premise, and also the same premise as disabling your antivirus when installing new software. 

If you want it to be easy malware authors to trick users into lowering their defenses, just normalize the practice of disabling the antivirus when installing software. Once it becomes normal the malware authors can ask users to do the same thing.

That's a nice network you've got there. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it

from here and here

If you're wondering which came first, my suspicion is that the companies started exploiting fear first. They had a financial incentive whereas early attackers weren't monetizing their attacks and were trying to go unnoticed. Capitalizing on fear draws attention that they didn't want back then. 

Clean your own house first

from here and here

I realize that Microsoft Defender is a lot better than MSAV was, and that it may even be good enough for PCs, but I don't think it's reached the point of making PCs safer than Macs yet.

In addition to that, I have difficulty imagining most Mac owners using an antivirus at all, never mind one by the makers of Windows. Many Mac owners joke that Windows IS a virus.

Maybe some day MS Defender for Macs will make sense, but not before they clean up their reputation and their own platform.

EICAR Standard Antivirus Test QR Code case

Product Page

Now you never have to go hunting for the EICAR Standard Antivirus Test File again. You can just take your phone out of the case, scan the case with your phone, and then send the result to whatever needed the EICAR string. 

I See You've Disabled Your Antivirus shirt

 

Product Page

If you have users who disable the antivirus on their company devices, meeting up with them in an intimidating t-shirt may be just what the doctor ordered.

I Just Sneezed Next To My Computer And The Anti-Virus Popped Up shirt

Product Page

I think we've all encountered antivirus that was a little overly sensitive, but thankfully I've never experienced a false positive quite this bad.

What could possibly go wrong?

from here

Telling users to disable their antivirus was a shady thing software vendors advised their customers decades ago, before the malware problem exploded. It's mind boggling to learn that some are still doing it, and worse they're makers of remote administration software that is used by managed service providers who remotely administer the systems of hundreds of organizations - with a fairly predictable outcome. 

There are better ways of dealing with false alarms on the software you make than getting your customers to disable their security or worse getting them to disable their own customers security.

And we can use light to kill the rest

found on Reddit

I've heard healing crystals also work. Not that I would rely on that.

More like mobile mal-wear

from here and here (image source)

That's not going to protect the device or the person. 

Still waiting for antivirus updates

from here and here (image source)

You might be wondering what computer virus is airborne, but in the age of wifi the real question is what computer virus isn't airborne. What I'm sure you can't see is that the mask has a wire mesh on the inside meant to block signals to and from his wireless antenna. 

In God We Trust All Else We Virus Scan mug

Product Page

Yes, virus scans are still a thing. No one seems to talk about it anymore, though. The more security is made invisible from the user's perspective, the more it seems like we're forgetting about things like this.

Antivirus face mask

Product Page

This meme just keeps evolving. I've seen photos of people wearing an actual antivirus CD as a mask. I've seen cartoon versions of those photos. I've seen those cartoons printed on masks and shirts and mugs, and now we have a face mask that looks like an antivirus CD. 

Send bitcoins if you want your brain back

from here

So based on this article, scrambling your brain with ransomware might be a bit of a stretch. However, if they can figure out the position of a pigs legs, how much more difficult would it be to read keystrokes (you know, like the ones when you enter your password)? I feel like maybe they didn't think this through all the way.

Antivirus Face Mask mask

Product Page

I was excited to learn that one of those online t-shirt companies was branching out into face masks, so I hat to check it out. Then I found this, and it was just too meta to pass up. Unfortunately at the time of writing all the masks are out of stock, which is a shame, because I'm still using a cut up t-shirt.

Now they just have to scare people into installing it like normal AV

from here

It's certainly good to hear that Google and Apple are working together on contact tracing, even if there are some problems with their approach.

Virus Scan sticker

Product Page

I didn't realize people put these sorts of stickers on things other than their laptops, but this particular placement means you're more likely to see your own sticker and be reminded why you really don't want to disable your AV.

Social Media Distancing

from here

But ducks don't have that many feet.

Listen to Ackbar Antivirus

found on Imgflip

Maybe (here me out here) the antivirus is right. It's certainly not unheard of for random sites on the Internet to be bad news.