Proton safety-concerns.
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Proton safety-concerns.
So I am seriously considering switching from win 10 to linux mint and although there aren't many games I play these days the few I do I defenitely don't want to sacrifice. . Dualbooting isn't really practical for me as I think my SSD on which my OS resides is too small (besides I'd rather avoid the hassle of booting back and forth) and Virtualbox isn't....great for gaming as I understand. Steam-Proton seems like the most practical solution however I read that it is a potential-security risk. Not that I,m exactly paranoid about security but still, are there any special safety-measures I should keep in mind if I do install Proton?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Re: Proton safety-concerns.
Proton underlying uses WINE to be able to run Windows software on Linux. In the WINE FAQ they answer, as should be evident, that if you can run Windows software on Linux you can run Windows malware as well: https://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#Is_Wine_mal ... patible.3F
Difference between plain WINE and Proton is that WINE hooks into your Linux system while Proton doesn't. WINE hooks into your MIME database so that Windows executables can be run with WINE and such. Proton doesn't install such hooks; it is only invoked from Steam. You're thus much less likely to download some random file from the internet which happens to be Windows malware and be able to run it accidentally on your system because WINE runs it for you when you open it in your file manager. Proton can also be used outside Steam and could also run such malware but there are more steps because Proton doesn't hook itself into your MIME database, so you can't open a Windows malware file in your file manager and Proton would run it for you. That would need more on the part of the malware or on your part to having hooked Proton into your system to do that.
That said many games have community content you can install. Like mods and such. Potentially malware could be distributed that way by somebody, depending on how Valve scans and monitors 3rd party content—I don't know. And the game itself could have malware in it if for example a developer system was infected with something. Again, don't know if Valve would catch that or how realistic that is. But the same goes for Linux games on Steam, they could have Linux malware depending on how Valve scans uploads. So that's not really a difference.
Be careful with unknown publishers and 3rd party content but I think Proton is safer than plain WINE because by default it is set up to be used from Steam client only.
Difference between plain WINE and Proton is that WINE hooks into your Linux system while Proton doesn't. WINE hooks into your MIME database so that Windows executables can be run with WINE and such. Proton doesn't install such hooks; it is only invoked from Steam. You're thus much less likely to download some random file from the internet which happens to be Windows malware and be able to run it accidentally on your system because WINE runs it for you when you open it in your file manager. Proton can also be used outside Steam and could also run such malware but there are more steps because Proton doesn't hook itself into your MIME database, so you can't open a Windows malware file in your file manager and Proton would run it for you. That would need more on the part of the malware or on your part to having hooked Proton into your system to do that.
That said many games have community content you can install. Like mods and such. Potentially malware could be distributed that way by somebody, depending on how Valve scans and monitors 3rd party content—I don't know. And the game itself could have malware in it if for example a developer system was infected with something. Again, don't know if Valve would catch that or how realistic that is. But the same goes for Linux games on Steam, they could have Linux malware depending on how Valve scans uploads. So that's not really a difference.
Be careful with unknown publishers and 3rd party content but I think Proton is safer than plain WINE because by default it is set up to be used from Steam client only.
Re: Proton safety-concerns.
Well, it's good to know that Proton is at least safer than Wine. Thanks for your answer.