This is the most authentic argument I have read so far on this subject. People do not care about vendors. People care about how they feel. For everything else going beyond the "You are safe!" popup (try to explain "DLL injection?" to your Granny! Okay, "blocking updates" she might understand) a user needs a far deeper understanding of what goes on under the hood of the OS, or practically any software based on said OS. "Uninstall AV software" does not make people feel safer, now that the narrative of "AV is making the Internet safer" is practically standard.

Maybe you could create a scheduled task that opens Windows Defender every 2 hours or so? It also has beautiful green buttons that show her how safe she is, and an orange warning every once in a while when she should do a quick scan. There's also some new security center coming with the next Windows 10 version: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/01/23/intro...

Not only your granny. I also want to remember the android icon which gained thousand of 5 star reviews for 'protecting' the smartphone. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/10/fake-andr...

I don't have an AV on my windows machine since ~8years and no problems so far.

A recent Windows 10 Update (I don't remember which) brought in periodic notifications from Windows Defender. They're not big bright green checkmarks, but it's a step in the right direction.

I can sell this solution to your granny for $20 a year :-)

    { while true; do sleep 10m ; zenity --notification --text="System safe" ; done }&

This is pretty common.

It isn't just the popup, though. "make sure you have anti-virus installed or else!" was the mantra drilled into people's heads 20 years back. This was the environment some folks learned to use the internet with. Perhaps she's seen her fair share of infections as well.

My mother is fairly similar in that regard, though she always blamed by brother and father for the infections. Since dad died and my brother isn't home, she may be easier to talk into change now.