When I started using Linux one of the things that got my attention initially was reading that there were no viruses in Linux, which was quite a departure from Windows ways. I was always curious about that... How could it be?
Full story »
http://cristalinux.blogspot.com –
Category: Beginner Tags:
- Login to post comments
motters
14 years 27 weeks 2 days 15 hours ago
Distro hopping
Also another factor which tends to mitigate against any possible malware, for me at least, is that I tend to install new distros several times a year. Any nasties remaining after deletion and re-formating of partitions probably deserves to survive.
In principle it's certainly not impossible for there to be viruses on Linux, it's just a more hostile environment for such things. Wanton clicking on debs/rpms from sites of questionable authenticity is the obvious infection route, and as Linux becomes more popular - especially on mobile devices and netbooks - the bad guys will be more actively looking for weaknesses which can be exploited.
lozz
14 years 27 weeks 18 hours 32 min ago
Also, avoid upgrades
Even if you aren't actually changing distros. it's probably better to do a fresh install rather than an upgrade. This gives your system a good clean out each time and gets rid of any nasties that might possibly hanging around.
Ubuntu87
14 years 27 weeks 8 hours 9 min ago
Why forgetting the good guys..?
You said that "as Linux becomes more popular - especially on mobile devices and netbooks - the bad guys will be more actively looking for weaknesses which can be exploited.", which is true.
But then again, we can't ignore or deny the fact that the world is also full of good people. There is a huge number of good hackers (like Jacob Appelbaum from the Tor Project, for example) who have dedicated their time and talents to give the user the best, safest, most private and most secure computing experience that's possible.