firewall & antivirus need?
 

Hi,

I am a Linux newbie, on Mndrake 9. I am very confused about the need for a firewall and antivirus. I have been told these are not necessary as Linux is not as vulnerable as Windows. I use my computer simply for home stuff, Word processing and the internet, etc. I am not running a server.

If they are not necessary why do the distros have them?

Thanks
Rose

Firewalls are nice. Anti-virus stuff is not really necessary, especially if you take simple security precautions.

It's true, open-source software tends to be less vulnerable than proprietary software like Windows. But then again, a Linux distribution comes with a lot more server-oriented software, and a bug in any one of them might potentially be disastrous (whereas a Windows user is not likely to be running telnet, ftp, X, web-server and other such servers). Also, one of the big security advantages of open-source is that patches for any security problems appear quickly, and can be applied immediately - but this relies on your own diligence in applying the updates to your software. If you keep running old software with known security holes, you're probably just as vulnerable as a Windows machine would be.

Firewalls are typically not too hard to set up. If you have a spare machine with nothing else to do, it's fairly easy to make a dedicated firewall - running only the bare minimum of services.