Does spyware or adware exist for linux or just windows?

Jimbob

there are sad sad attempts at at it, but no. dont worry about it.

Viruses exit however linux is less suseptible and has fewer enermies.

Jimbob

Well I dont think most virus writers really care what systems they hit, if linux had a huge market share I'm sure there would be a lot more attempts at it. Right now another problem for viruses is that in general linux users are more aware of things like this and also have access to the source code for a large majority of their software. Open source is particularly a reason for the lack of spyware, you couldn't make something like kazaa riddled with spyware as an open source program because first of all someone would see it and second of all it would be very easy and also legal to remove the harmful parts and release a fixed up version.
Also unix based systems are just inherently better at keeping them out and stopping them spread because if a virus is run on a linux system it only has access to the users files and to spread properly or do any real damage it would need some sneaky way of getting root access.
Like m00t00 said it's not worth worrying about, however it's always worth being careful and aware no matter what your system is(I still wouldn't bother with AV progs or anything though)

However, how you protect your computer can vary depending on how you use it. For my laptop, I just have a firewall since it is only used when I'm sitting at it and pretty much all servers are turned off. Now my server is a different story. It is on 24/7 and can be accessed directly from the Internet. So to protect that I have my firewall, Snort to monitor for intrusions and Aide to monitor the files for changes.

And of course, you should never, never, never, NEVER surf the net as root. As long as you are a normal user when you are connected, any malware or virii you might pick up are going to be very limited in what they can do.

But still you should be careful. Even though a virus can't break your system easily if it runs as your normal user I don't thinnk it's funny to have your home directory deleted.

Is there some sort of Pop up stopper for Mozilla on Linux?

Isn't it built in in preferences? Otherwise you might try firefox as it's a lot more lightweight and has a popupstopper built in.

No, tis not built in preferences. Haven't got FireFox yet. Will hvae to w8 for that a bit more.

I've heard it said that there are only about 40 confirmed viruses that are designed to target Linux, and half of those are studies in computer security that have never been released out of the computer labs where they were made.

Mozilla does indeed have popup preferences. You just didn't look hard enough. Edit>Preferences>Privacy & Security>Popup Windows. Check the box labelled "Block unrequested popup windows". If you want to allow an individual site to have popups, place the url in the Allowed sites list.

Some people consider certain types of cookies spyware...It is very easy to delete them. In fact, I am so paranoid I set Mozilla to dump them on program exit. It's really not that big of a deal though.

My son would come over every 2 weeks and it would take me 3 days to disinfect the computers he used. He would download internet kids games laced with adware and viruses back when I used XP. I switched to Linux on all my computers and I haven't had to devirus ANY of my computers in going on 3 years now. It is a blessing to be able to sit back and KNOW you are safer than you were in win-duhs. I would not profess that you are 100% safe, because only the foolish deal in absolutes when it comes to computers. HOWEVER, you are way closer with the security settings strait off your first setup.

Please do not resurrect long-dead threads. This one is over 6 years old.