What's the Best Anti-virus?

oneeyed said:

remm said:

There is nothing stopping hackers from writing viruses for Mac or Linux...

I don't know much about classic Mac OS, but you're definitely wrong about Linux, and probably MacOS X too. There ARE already viruses on Linux, about a known dozen from what I remember.

Yes and there are rootkits as well. I don't think I said there were no viruses... I said they weren't overrun, as they would be (imo) if they had been the mainstays.

A virus is a program that when executed, spreads itself to other programs by embedding part of its code in other executables, which in turn will do the same. Hence the association with the biological viruses which act similarly.

Under linux, by default an executable won't have enough privileges to do that, this is what lehnerus2000 was talking about.

I see. And that makes sense. However, where there is a will, there's a way, and since privileges can be granted in Linux with the proper commands (AFAIK), eventually when the motivation is high enough, virus-writers will break down Linux walls. The fact that Linux is open-source will also help that cause, I'd imagine.

So, to be able to spread, a virus would have to be able to break this wall, which is called privilege escalation, and is a much, much harder task than simply writing a traditional virus.

That I don't doubt. But again... when the motivation is high enough... instead there has been a much easier OS to circumvent that has played center stage. In fact today, sadly, you don't need to have any knowledge of viruses to run botnets and perform other malicious acts on remote computers, as the tools are all free online, readily available. So while hackers with actual knowledge (the malicious minority) might be working on stealing or hacking into corps and gvmnt, entire generations of KIDS sitting at home who want to see "if they can" are playing with these tools causing at least a large portion of the 'common infections' seen running about on Windows machines. Again JMO.

So all the viruses that already exist on Linux don't do much,

Yet.

they just execute and at worst copy themselves to user directories, but never beyond. If you have a Linux OS, you can even for fun download some of them and see for yourself.

As previously stated I have several distros on sticks and setup Ubuntu on a laptop for mom to pay bills.

So yeah, there is something preventing hackers from writing viruses for Linux : they just don't work on it.

Again, yet. We will have to agree to disagree on this.

remm said:

..it's only that the machines most used by businesses/gvmnt/people have traditionally been PCs running Windows.

Again wrong. While it's true that Windows is the main OS for home users, and generally desktop computers, Unix-based and then Linux OS has been for a long time the main OS for servers/mainframes/super computers. So the business and especially government using mostly Windows is definitely wrong.

Linux may run mainframes but if you walk into any corp you will see PCs running XP for the most part. In most cases companies have not wanted to invest the money to upgrade OSs.

And of course, today Linux and OSes based on the Linux Kernel are becoming dominant on embedded and mobile systems.

Absolutely, which is exactly why the motivation to write viruses for Linux is increasing exponentially.

Time will tell which of us is right.

Don't think I totally disagree with you. Of course windows being so dominant on PCs is a big contribution, it's mainly the largest target there. I'm kinda playing devil's advocate here.

But still, when you talk about virus hackers' motivations I think you are off the mark. Most rich targets don't run on Windows, as a matter of course. Military mainframes, banks' servers holding your accounts, a lot of web servers, hell most REALLY important computers ARE under unix-based OSes. So the motivation is right there... The big money is there.

About hackers "breaking Linux walls". It's already possible, there are various exploits that are discovered all the time, Linux is in the same train as Windows on this. But only a few of these allow privilege escalation, and it's one of the most critical security problems. Linux being open-source, they get full disclosure (unlike Microsoft which until recently hid everything) and get patched very fast. A virus can't just get root access with a few commands, that's just not how it works; apart from exploits the only other way is to crack the root password and that's no simple affair. But exploits do exist, just like in Windows, and once they are patched... any virus relying on them don't work anymore, unlike Windows with administrator privileges as default (which was the norm till Vista) where viruses work no matter what.

Again, technology evolves and so do exploits and viruses... what is deemed impossible today becomes passe tomorrow. At one time 64-bit encryption was considered unbreakable. One day 256 encryption will not be safe and maybe soon, with quantum computing on the horizon. Linux will not be any 'safer' than Windows once it becomes a real focus, and phones and tablets are helping to steer things that way. History will bear me out, I believe. But again, this is JMO.

I have always used AVG and Microsoft Security Essentials. Never had a problem out of either one. I do a full computer scan every other week of the month. I do not like Norton. Every time I used Norton, it kept putting threats on my computer. Some say it's not best to run 2 antivirus programs at the same time, but I have never ran into a problem with running 2. A friend of mine who knew a lot about computers said that running to antivirus programs should not hurt anything.

lehnerus2000 said:

jessejamestw23 said:

I have always used AVG and Microsoft Security Essentials. Never had a problem out of either one. I do a full computer scan every other week of the month. I do not like Norton. Every time I used Norton, it kept putting threats on my computer. Some say it's not best to run 2 antivirus programs at the same time, but I have never ran into a problem with running 2. A friend of mine who knew a lot about computers said that running to antivirus programs should not hurt anything.

They may detect each other's malware signature database.
This could result in them deleting each other's malware data.

I have seen people claim that the 2 AV programs may fight with each other, using up resources like RAM and CPU.

AVG may disable MSE.
It disables Windows Defender in my W7 VMs.

Well, mine are not set to do things on their own without my attention. MSE is updated manually, and AVG updates automatically. But, it sometimes requires me to update it if it has a big update.