my friend told me that they dont get viruses
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Linix doesn’t need anti-virus protection because nobody bothers to write viruses for it. I’ve never heard of Ubuntu. Windows XP and Vista on the other hand.. . GET PROTECTION.
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A friend of mine has Linux.

Nope. Linux requires no anti viruses — it has even less viruses and trojans than Mac’s do.

Permissions on Linux are universal. They cover three things you can do with files: read, write, and execute. Not only that, they come in three levels: for the root user, for the individual user who is signed in, and for the rest of the world. Typically, software that can impact the system as a whole requires root privileges to run.

Unlike previous windows OS’s, if you downloaded a malicious script, it can run without requiring any permissions. But because Linux uses this kind of authorisation system, it’s a lot harder for viruses to execute.
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The answer is no ………………
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I’ve already made up my mind. I’ve already pre ordered windows 7. If it doesn’t do better than XP or at least as good as XP, If it doesn’t make my 700 buck HP Vista OS run better, I’m switching them both to linux I’m tired of buggy windows. Mac’s are two costly or i would buy one of those. My HP computer with Vista has been nothing but a pain in the butt. My E machine with XP runs smooth as silk. But microsoft wants to do away with XP. When that happens, If windows 7 act’s like Vista, I know i will be switching.
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You don’t NEED one, but it doesn’t hurt to have on either. Also, let’s say you use a flashdrive on someone’s computer and it gets infected with something. If you have an antivirus on your linux machine, you could clean the drive and stop the risk of infecting other machines. Easiest way to set one up?

sudo apt-get install klamav

Enjoy, and best of luck.
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no linux or ubuntu never needs an antivirus
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No it does not need an antivirus, but having a good firewall is always a smart thing to do.

Go to Add/Remove and look for "Firestarter," it’s an easy way to build-up a firewall on Linux without having to deal with the terminal.

If you want an antivirus anyways, then you can also find "ClamAV" in Add/Remove.
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I use Ubuntu, and have never had any malware problems at all.

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/1820/screenshotxwq.png

99.66% of all malware written, is written for Windows computers. .04% is written from MacOS x. That leaves the remaining .3% for all the other operating systems (Linux, Unix, Ubuntu, etc.) out there. So the odds are pretty good you don’t need anything.
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This is just speculation, But personally i believe that most viruses come from people who work for Apple Computer. The reason i think that is because Windows was originally a Apple running system. Microsoft stole the idea from apple and built on it. Apple originally trashed the OS before Microsoft stole the idea. That’s why there are so many viruses written that hit this running system only. I will prob switch to linux or Ubuntu eventually. I’m gonna wait and give windows 7 a try first. If it doesn’t fix the already troubled Vista running system i know i will.
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Currently there are potentially over 500 different viruses (malware) attacking Linux computers. Technically in the business environment, to meet ITCS300 standards, Linux requires a anti-virus package. Though largely, this is simply a waste of resources as viruses are VERY rare. In my 5+ years of Linux support, I have yet to see malware successfully attack a Linux distro.

A good anti-virus product would be Symantec, I’ve used it a bit and it seems fairly stable. I’ve had issues with the older Trend Micro products as it would cause systems to grind to a halt.

The other reasons why Linux does not get viruses:

* Open Source community act VERY quickly to patch problems.
* Kernel has a firewall built in called IPTABLES
* User accounts are NOT allowed to install things unwittingly
* There is a wall up between systems software and application software.
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Couldn’t hurt – AVG has a free one for linux.
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What would go wrong if linux or Ubuntu use anti virus?