Can someone please explain to me what the actual point of a virus

Scanning for known attack patterns. Therefore new attacks someone has to be infected and report it first.

>>57276700
>Therefore new attacks someone has to be infected and report it first.
So it literally is just checking that you did not download virus.exe.

The entire concept strikes me as a roundabout halting problem.

A program that detects of other programs are viruses.

>>57276684
It scans for known, i.e. old, threats

Then you have the heuristic engine which is either pointless or overzealous and gives lots of false positives

Rather than using AV you should use

a) an OS that less vulnerable and popular for attacks
b) a proper setup such as a decent browser (as in not some obscure fork maintained by 1 guy) with extensions to block JS, autoplay of media files, ads etc, non-admin account, UAC prompt (assuming you're on windows)
c) common sense, as in don't run imnotavirushonest.exe

Also executives isn't the word you're looking for, it's executables

>>57276732

Pretty much.
Some antivirus have heuristic analysis capabilities but for the most part they match patters and act what they match.

>>57276700
I like to imagine that you have employees at Symantec actively browsing the shadiest Russian porn sites as part of their research to improve their database.