[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

The word “virus” has morphed and almost all “viruses” on the PC side now are malware. And guess how many PCs are infected by someone clicking on something they shouldn’t have? Probably close to 90% of infections of malware.

So keep being semantically difficult, but the most clicky users of the PC are now clicky users on the Mac because they have been told that Macs can’t get “viruses”.

But they sure can get “trojan horse malware”, can’t they?

[hoosierham]

I regularly see the fake Adobe update and just alt-f4 to get rid of it;it is also the only malware Windows Defender has identified and removed,but my ISP runs anti-virus .

[Dr. Sivana]

But they sure can get “trojan horse malware”, can’t they?

Indeed. There would be no way to stop malware without removing the option to program your own computer. A number of Symantec products over the years probably qualify as malware.

While I still wince when people use "impact" as a verb, I do not normally correct those using it colloquially, except when providing a service. That said, malware, trojan and virus have distinct and useful meanings. I do not intend to sit unmoved as a wire service doesn't properly use the terms. Oh, and I still haven't forgiven Apple for getting the general public to use the word "font" when "typeface" is more accurate.