On Friday 09 May 2008, Dirk Heinrichs wrote: > Am Freitag, 9. Mai 2008 schrieb ext Tony Caudel: > > I am currently using the clamv anti-virus program. I was wondering > > if there is a better one for Gentoo, especially one that integrates > > well with Thunderbird. That has been my one disappointment with > > clamav. Not necessarily clamav's fault since T/B maintains its > > emails in one long file. > > Hmm, how many Linux viruses exist out there? Usually these Linux > based anti virus progs only make sense on mail servers that receive > mail for Windows users. > > Or am I completely wrong here?
I don't think you are wrong. I know that theoretical Linux viruses do exist, but I've yet to actually see one in the wild. Mail with a virus payload doesn't make much sense in the Linux world - how would the payload launch? Mail clients don't launch executables and they don't do it on Windows either - they tend to take advantage of ActiveX, VBMacros or whatever other sandbox applet MS comes up with next week. Linux doesn't have such things. Rootkits do exist though. But how is an anti-virus program going to detect them? By running as root???? OMFG. I think I will be much much much safer NOT running Symantec's latest and greatest than running it. -- Alan McKinnon alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com -- gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
