a friend told me that though using linux, a firewall is necessary and i still should find a program to remove spyware with. is this true? what are the programs to be recommended? i thought using a router and linux suse 9.1 can make me feel safe.

regards
ungua

A firewall does not make a secure computer. The stupid users in the DoD still have to have IT people remove virus and spyware code from their machines too, and they have the best perimeter security money can buy/build (though they'll admit it's not perfect )

Your computer will be *more* secure with a firewall than without, and Linux is for sure more secure (for the overage user) than Win32 as you don't have to be a local admin to use it, but a firewall and linux will not stop the determined ...

You can help secure the system by not doing silly things. Don't run programs that you don't need (services I mean). Don't run executable code sent to you from unknown people. Check the md5 sums on code you download from the net and don't build it as root (only install as root ... people who recall when OpenSSH's FTP got rooted know what I mean).

Just things like that.

As for spyware for Linux -- I don't know of any. I'm sure some could be written, and with some of the more complicated desktop environments (KDE|GNOME) there may be a way to slip something past a user, but the risk is seriously limited.

Given installing software is easy as double clicking an rpm on some distributions, spyware could soon become a very harsh reality. Ease of use leads to people not knowing what they're actually installing.

That's not the issue ... Ease of use is not an excuse for laziness, ignorance or outright stupidity ... If you don't know what something is, don't go mucking about with it until you've at least goggled it.

Then again ... Not knowing what rm -f / does and trying it as root is a valuable learning experience (doing rm -rf * in a directory other than the one you meant to be in is good for learning why you operate under a normal user and not root, too)

that's right, something that prevented me from skipping from w98 to winxp... i am still a very big newbie, i did never compile something since i lack the time to set myself in how to use data from a .tar.gz for instance. but thank you for answering, looks like my "infect risk" is quite low...

regards
ungua

It's not an excuse, it's that most users ARE ignorant of what they are downloading and installing, that's how spyware gets on windows machines, it's not like the stuff installs itself, you can use windows without ever getting spyware on it if you don't install junk.

That's not true at all. The vast majority of spyware infects windows computers through the browser and email with zero user intervention. The only way to use a windows computer on the internet and not get that crap is to disable all the things that say "active" and/or "script" in the browser security settings, and I doubt that would stop it all.

my windows was ruined after i downloaded quicktime. i have never heard of this before and never after but that's the reason why i use linux now, 30gb of as-stupid-as-i-am unbackuped data poorer. you won't call quicktime for junk?

regards
ungua

BULLSHIT.

Been using windows 2000 since a short while after it was released and have had no spyware infections. (despite scanning regulary, all is found is cookies, which are completely harmless.

to get most spyware installed you need to click "yes" at loads of things popping up asking to install, usually disguised as "click yes to enter this site" or some bs.

If people click yes to those I consider that ignorance and I consider that user intervention.

And the majority of spyware comes from actually CHOSEN TO DOWNLOAD stuff. The thing about windows users, is there's a mentality of downloading a program to do everyhting they want, no matter how simple. People download programs that will change their wallpaper, they download programs to rename files, they download programs to theme other programs, the download programs to manage programs. And in a vast amount of times, the user just gets lost in self-serving advertisments and ends up downloading software they don't know how good it will be.

And a lot of the time people on p2p will download ALL the results from a p2p search in the hope that one will work...

Where did you download it from?

If you downloaded it from apple.com then it's coincedence you lost data after install it, if it wasn't from apple.com then you need your head examined.

You should quickly notify the appropriate authorities on such things, as I'm almost positive you're the only one.

Why should I feed my ego and think that somehow I'm special? I'm not, there are plenty of people out there who do look at how they use computers, most of them sure are probably using linux, but there are non-clueless windows users, so drop the "better than thou" attitude towards windows users.

My being better than most windows users has nothing to do with what operating system they choose to use...

From what I've seen in my 4 years in the IT feild is most Windows users disable tons of security features, don't tend to read the warnings... Because they do not wish to, they just want to read their X, Y & Z, and play their G** D*mn stupid F***ing falsh games!!! (<- sorry just a pet peive)
Most of them have no idea the amount of headaches spyware, adware causes the admins, its not their problem, but it is your problem and your fault that their computer is not working like it did that one day before they got the spyware/adware... Most do not understand what any of it is. They tend to believe that if they do not click "YES" (or whatever) that they will not be able to play their fav. flash game, or check out their fav. site. That tends to be their mentality and reasoning behind their ways



:disclamier:
Mind you this is through my personal experience with my user base, not everyone eles' user base. And just for refrence my user base includes office admin, wrench spinners, bosses, and "smart" admins.

tracking cookies are harmless? hmmm