Users have many misunderstandings about privacy that can cause them harm on the internet. Media is partially to blame for this, as depictions of antivirus software and VPNs can be very misleading.

On a technical level, antivirus software and virus software do similar things and many viruses disguise themselves as an antivirus. One such example is SpySheriff, which disguises itself as an antivirus and reads many fake positive results. This scares the user into keeping the virus and pay for more features. . Also, if an antivirus becomes infected with a virus, it can cause a lot of harm and pose as a security risk. This has happened in the past. .

VPNs have various security features but they all advertise themselves as completely anonymous and secure. They also advertise things like encryption and data privacy even though some collect logs and will sell your data to other companies. A user needs to find a VPN that has a no log policy and refuses to turn any information over to a government. NordVPN has good privacy features but McAfee Safe Connect doesn’t have such features even though it advertises itself as private as well. . This also brings into question the issue of trust. It’s impossible to know which provider to trust to not keep logs or divulge your information to third parties. Issues like this make privacy difficult to secure and complicated to evaluate.