Whelp, if that's not a succint answer I dunno what is. I ended up asking the search engine what you thought on the topic [0], and I think it was informative. At least, it made me feel a bit less bad about my stance. (Confirmation bias / appeal to authority ahoy.)

[0] https://hn.algolia.com/?q=tptacek+antivirus#!/comment/foreve...

I'll take the bait: what kind of system would you run? Linux? No evil web browser plugins? A personal computer which you never use to browse the web (RMS style)? Anything more exotic?

I have a Macbook, like most of us. I turn the firewall on, and I use Chrome. That's about it.

To all?