Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also common knowledge that the AV industry has a huge software quality and engineering problem ("let's unpack malware and emulate x86 in kernel space, because that never backfired before!").
I've actually heard many people (including one Chrome developer) that they don't even use AV anymore except Windows Defender because 99% of AV break Windows/applications by using non-standard hooks and may even introduce new vulnerabilities with their kernel drivers/etc. https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/02/01/1334219/google-chrome... Honestly, if they can't even stop viruses from infiltrating closed systems like Andr…
When it runs code to detect if it is a virus, you have to trust the sandboxing and frankly I've yet to see a sandbox that at some point hasn't been taken control of and exploited (this goes for web browsers too). So it's better to just not execute code than to trust the AV's VM to execute the code without being compromised.
I use programs on a whitelist basis and only update for security patches. This avoids issues like what happened with Transmission.
AV also detect have pitiful detection rates - something like E: I imagine the downvotes are from my claims of pitiful detection rates or claims that AV is basically security fanfare. Don't take my word for it then.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/06/antivirus...
[1] http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-europe-08/Feng-Xue/...
[2] http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-05/bh-us-05-whe...
[3] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1916708