Linux Mint Forums

Linux doesn't need a anti-virus. The funniest thing I've seen was when I was a newbie and really liked Lindows/Linspire and they were selling a Linux anti-virus, so they can just suck your money and give you a program that is practically useless. There are like 6 linux viruses and they don't even affect Debian. So you are practically safe with Linux Mint.

I would recommend guarddog as it passes the Shields Up! test and using ipblock as well.

Iptables comes with a basic installation of Mint, so you have a firewall at install. Just use firestarter to configure it if you want to be a bit more "secure": Firestarter is just a GUI used to configure iptables, no need for it to be running for the firewall to be "in effect". As for the necessity of a firewall is debatable, if you have a decent router that should have a built in firewall, your ISP probably has a firewall "in the line", so that makes it at least 2 walls before your computer, and a local one is more a matter of taste and the stealth mode capabilities.
As for AV or AS, it is a complete waste of resource and space on a linux box, most known spyware and virus only runs on Windows, and do not work on OSX or Linux/Unix/BSD/Solaris etc, one of the benefits of using a *x OS. You could occasionally delete your temporary internet files to clean out tracker cookies though, those are platform independent..