Anti-Virus?

[exoticracerx]

Is anti virus or anti spyware necessary for linux?

[devils casper]

If your machine is a part of Windows Network then you should install AntiVirus package. Check this Short Security Guide.

[bryansmith]

Depends, like devilscasper stated, how your linux box is situated in your network. If it is serving files to Windows machines, then you probably should to avoid the spreading of Windows viruses through your Linux box. If you Linux box isn't serving anything and has little to do with Windows boxes, probably not.

Bryan

[i92guboj]

Depends, like devilscasper stated, how your linux box is situated in your network. If it is serving files to Windows machines, then you probably should to avoid the spreading of Windows viruses through your Linux box. If you Linux box isn't serving anything and has little to do with Windows boxes, probably not.

Bryan

It's not a bad idea to install it anyway, if only because of netiquette, even if you are not vulnerable that doesn't mean that everyone is safe. Things like sending infected mails can make your friends and customers angry, and people start complaining to your isp because they tracked an attempt of attack from your ip you can get a nice ban or something worse if they take legal actions. It's an extreme case, of course.

Also, note that there are linux viruses. The virus free linux is a myth, though it's true they are not so common as those for windows. The good thing is that being a true multiuser system, at most, the linux viruses are confined to the user they run under, so they usually don't spread to the whole system unless you like to watch porn sites as the root user (some people seem to reach sexual excitation when they have power, you know )

That's also why I use wine as an alternative user, and not with my main one, when I am going to run untrusted software.

[bigtomrodney]

I'm not too worried about catering for other people's lack of security. Certainly if I ran a fileserver, ftp site or email server I'd run some ani-virus and anti-malware. As a desktop I have already done a great job of marginalising the threat from my system to others by switching to Linux. There is always a risk however small in any system, but I think I've made mine small enough to sleep well at night.

I'm careful in what I forward myself and take some comfort that the current chance of having a virus that would infect a Windows PC are far below probability.