anti virus

**msvf** · June 21st, 2008

It feels odd not to have a firewall, anti virus and all the other security apps. Is this how its me ment to be on linux or are you supposed to install security apps?

**fiddledd** · June 21st, 2008

It's actually being discussed here atm :

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=817898

**lisati** · June 21st, 2008

It's up to you. Have a look at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=765421

**Dynaflow** · June 21st, 2008

You actually already have a firewall. Just configure it with Firestarter (available through Add/Remove Programs).

Anti-virus doesn't really matter for us, at least at this stage of the game, and if you run it, it's mainly as a courtesy when passing on files to Windows-using friends in order to make sure we're not giving them some horrible virus that we didn't notice because our systems are immune.

If you want it, ClamAV is also available through A/R Progs. I think its title there is just "Anti-virus." Personally, I'm more partial to Avast (http://www.avast.com/eng/download-av...x-edition.html), even though it's command-line only and thus utterly unpretty. If you want to try that one, download the .deb, install it, and read its manual page ($ man avast).

**akiratheoni** · June 21st, 2008

Long story short, if you're a desktop user, you don't need one. It might be good to install an anti-virus to catch Windows viruses that you may unintendedly send along but generally you don't need one.