State of virus scanners on Linux?

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/dev/urandom

Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by /dev/urandom »

Virus scanners are never trustworthy enough.
monkeyboy

Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by monkeyboy »

AbdRahim wrote:Bit Defender works in Ubuntu, but crashes in Mint 14. None of the fixes worked here. :(
Is BD in the repositories? I used it a few years ago and really liked it. Thanks
dee.

Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by dee. »

Linux needs virus scanners like a fish needs a bicycle.

This idiocy of using virus scanners on linux has to stop. All you're doing by using them is legitimizing this scam that is being perpetuated by antivirus companies, who are trying to push a flawed solution to a non-existent problem (on linux). Antivirus doesn't really even work that well at catching malware - even on windows. It is a fundamentally flawed approach, because it's a reactionary approach - the antivirus companies are constantly reacting to individual malware authors and having to update their databases in order to catch all the new malware - which means that the antivirus software will always be one step behind the virus authors. It will never provide security against newest exploits.

Not only that, but antivirus software is also notoriously inaccurate. They give more false positives than they do real ones. But the antivirus companies don't even want to fix this, because the layman isn't going to be able to tell a false positive from a real one, so giving false positives makes their software look more useful. Some small software authors have suffered harassment from clueless users when some crappy antivirus has flagged their software as malware, and the av companies refuse to fix it even when it's reported to them. They don't care as long as it isn't a big software house that can sue their pants off...

If there are new exploits, antivirus won't protect against them anyway, and old exploits tend to be already patched against in the kernel/other software.
eanfrid

Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by eanfrid »

Very true. I didn't make it clear the first time: the purpose of an antivirus on a Linux machine is not to protect this machine. Any antivirus on your Linux machine is only useful to prevent the transmission of some well-known virus-like threats to Windows machines. Antivirus software works like a medieval armor: it will not protect from carelessness, deception, treachery and poison.
peterpan5150

Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by peterpan5150 »

Hello,
Comodo makes a free antivirus scanner for linux distros.
It is running perfectly on my LM14 Cinnamon OS.
You can find the download link for all major linux distros here :
http://www.comodo.com/home/download/dow ... nux&track=
After downloading and installing it, run sudo run /opt/COMODO/post_setup.sh in the terminal.
Accept licence, and finish installation.
Run comodo from menu, update virus defintions and chose language interface (more->preferences)
nomko

Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by nomko »

eanfrid wrote:Very true. I didn't make it clear the first time: the purpose of an antivirus on a Linux machine is not to protect this machine. Any antivirus on your Linux machine is only useful to prevent the transmission of some well-known virus-like threats to Windows machines. Antivirus software works like a medieval armor: it will not protect from carelessness, deception, treachery and poison.
This explains a lot when to use (or not) an antivirus tool: http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.ph ... 03#p618715
nomko

Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by nomko »

Comodo makes a free antivirus scanner for linux distros.
Great news! I loved Comodo when i was using Windows.

After downloading and installing it, run sudo run /opt/COMODO/post_setup.sh in the terminal.
nomko@mint14desktop ~ $ sudo run /opt/COMODO/post_setup.sh
sudo: run: command not found

Something is not right with that command.....
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xenopeek
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Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by xenopeek »

Probably an extra "run" in that sentence? This might work better:

Code: Select all

sudo /opt/COMODO/post_setup.sh
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wheeljack73
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Re: State of virus scanners on Linux?

Post by wheeljack73 »

I am using Linux Mint Petra, Cinnamon edition. I use Bitdefender on my Mac, and Windows 7/8 boxes and generally happy with it, so I decided to register for a free key for the Linux version. Installed fine, and GUI seemed to work, but when pressing the scan button it would segfault and close down. I then performed the fix mentioned above concerning the 64 bit library, but still segfaulted. I then noticed if I went into the settings on the GUI and told it to load the engines, it was doing so fine. Only segfaulted when pressing the scan button. All other parts of the gui worked fine. If I enabled the drop zone, and dropped a folder or file location on to it, the scan wouold work normally. Pressing the scan button on the GUI however segfaults every time.

I suspect personally its looking for Nautilus and its libraries, and not finding it therefore crashing. I imagine that when pressing scan, it should be bringing up a file/folder dialog box to pick a location to scan. I can live with dragging and dropping for now, and now know how to use it via command line anyway so not a big deal.
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