does linux need a virus scanner?

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This sums it up.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/doe ... antivirus/

If you want anti-virus protection, Ubuntu has Clam-AV in its package repositories. There are only 800 or so Linux viruses that have ever existed though, and none that are around at the moment that are free in the "wild". Also Linux is a lot more secure than Windows and I doubt that, even if Linux's popularity ever did surpass that of Windows, viruses and malware will ever be a problem as much as it is in Windows now. Unless, of course, people decide to make a habit out of logging on as root all the time.

Last edited by Jono on 19 Jul 2009, 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

eventually, because people who do that @#$% are just going to make one for the challenge of it. You tell freaks like that that somethings' 'impossible', they're going to find a way.

Agreed. But I think thats just a minor thing. They'll get their proof, the kernel will be updated and they'll go back to MS viruses.

Its like in a city full of clean walls, the graffiti taggers will paint where they want. So if you immediately paint over it, They'll come right back to spite you. You just have to be diligent and persistent and keep covering their work(as soon as they do it). Eventually they will find walls(and windows) that let their work persist.

I was kind of intrigued about the opinion of the guy who wrote the article linked above that you don't even need anti-virus on Windows either. It makes me think differently not only about Windows as an OS, but desktop computing as a whole. If I was just a little more closed minded I'd think he's crazy for having that opinion.

I personally have had no problems with viruses EVER on windows OR linux, and honestly, I think it's (as the article writer said) because of being really careful about what I click on the internet, not the anti-virus programs.

I hope you know that even if you installed and uninstalled 20 anti-virus programs and they did report your Windows isn't infected, it can still be...

A Linux antivirus would be a good idea as it would keep a virus from infecting other non-Linux computers.

How so, if the virus cannot write itself into the kernel how is it going to propagate itself

It can propagate itself through eMails and also it still stores the Virus on the drive and can infect external storage medium than can be plugged into Windows and Mac computers.

get a mac

And cheese.

mac hater! linux fanboi!

Screw that, Windows users are responsible for their own security.

I agree.

I have had different anti-virus programs on my Linux systems and they have never ever found a virus and this includes Windows viruses as well, that's not to say that they couldn't be lurking in there, in the dark... but I'm never concerned about it, don't care to even think about it. If Windows users have problems, they definitely should consider moving over to Linux instead.

As a Linux user I'm happy, things are actually working and I can be way more productive than I ever was on Windows.

For Linux was written 5 viruses, 2 of them don't work, other 3 require some tunning your computer up to start working. (c) russian joke

I think we're forgetting one thing here, when we say that viruses won't affect linux, even if it gains popularity: Popularity means that there will be idiots using the thing.

idiot user + sudo + troll on linux support forum. You do the math.

fear the command that says "sudo rm -r / -nopreserveroot"