The latest edition of Virus Bulletin magazine has just announced its results from its Linux comparative tests.
This month, they focused on the "explosively popular" Ubuntu distribution, which was first seen on the VB100 test bench almost three years ago, in June 2008. Sophos Anti-Virus for Linux passed with flying colours, and easily earned its VB100 this month.
14 anti-virus products submitted their products to this month's comparative. According to Virus Bulletin's Technical Director John Hawes, "Obviously there are a lot more Windows security products out there than there are for Linux. Only the big serious players tend to support multiple platforms. It is important that all systems to be protected if only to prevent cross infection from more targeted platforms."
Just as with the tests that Virus Bulletin conducts on other operating system platforms, the VB100 title is only awarded if a product is capable of detecting all in-the-wild viruses in both on-demand and on-access modes without suffering from any false positives.
"As usual, Sophos did extremely well in this test. And, it was the easiest to install," commented Hawes.
You can find more details of the test in the February 2011 edition of Virus Bulletin magazine, published today.
Don't forget that you can read more about Sophos's long track record in independent comparative tests on our reviews page.
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I object to running a Windows virus scanner on my *nix systems just to help prevent the spread of viruses to / from Windows machines
They want to run an insecure system, so be it
but leave me out of it
and certainly don't expect me to expend my CPU cycles to try (in vain) to solve Windows' security issues
Couldn't agree more!
Ladeeez and Gennnelmen!
Ebenezer Scrooge is IN DA HOUSE!
Bet you're a real bag of laughs and spirit-of-the-season generosity at Christmas time, eh :-)
^^ I buy and sell diseased animals intended for use as food..
Never mind, I don't eat meat, I don't care.
Nice attitude
That "f-you people running Windows" attitude speaks to one of the main reasons why the open source community are seen as arrogant...
My attitude isn't one of 'f-you' so much as 'leave me out of your problems'. As for the *nix user, you don't know he has anything to do with open source- he's quite possibly a diehard Mac user.
That is the stupidest argument I've ever seen, both a straw man and ad hominem. You're attacking the person, not the point he made, which you've clearly misunderstood.
The article is about running antivirus software on a Linux machine to prevent the spread of Windows viruses on a network. If you had a Mac, would you want to run a CPU-intensive antivirus program to prevent the spread of Windows viruses? Do you get a flu shot to prevent your neighbor from getting sick?
I run Windows and Ubuntu on my PC. I prefer Ubuntu, but need still Windows for some programs. I do use antivirus on Ubuntu; not so much as to protect me, but to protect others that may get a virus if I forward an email that, unknowingly, may be affected. Matter of choice for some. For me, it's the right thing to do. So far Linux is pretty much free of the virus hassles, but sooner or later?
The architecture of Linux prevents malware from being a self-propagating problem. There isn't much a trojan can do without root access to your system. When you obtain a file, it lacks the execute permission and can't run. Linux doesn't use the file extension to determine the file properties, either.
Source: http://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/8...
Just curious... if Linux is so inherently secure, then how come I keep having to install security updates for various pieces of code? Including the Linux kernel itself, where IIRC a successful exploit could result in a system-level compromise?
Also, in this age where (a) computers have much more horsepower than the average user requires, and (b) we share files between people who use different operating systems (and sometimes even host files for people who use computers which run different operating systems), it would only seem reasonable that we collectively act to prevent malware from spreading. After all, we hire police officers collectively in order to protect all of us, not just you and me as individuals. We buy auto liability insurance to protect others, in a sense. Modern A/V isn't as much of a drag on modern systems as A/V used to be on older machines, so why NOT run it?
~EdT.