I’m about to install bazzite on my wife’s older (2017) Windows 10 machine, and I’ve been going over how to recreate everything she currently has. Most programs (even proprietary ones) are not an issue, but I’m not finding much in the antivirus department.

I never even thought to install one on my Linux machine (also on bazzite, but I have used other distros in the past). So although I am no stranger to Linux, this issue blindsided me.

I know clamav exists, and I’m educating myself on how to use it, but a GUI would be nice for the wife. She’s not afraid of the terminal, but she likes the convenience of GUI programs.

Any suggestions? What do you use? Or is it just generally accepted that one should be careful and keep things up-to-date and that’s enough?

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    Linux viruses for desktop computers are so rare, they’re pretty much unheard of in practice. And that’s why virus scanners aren’t really a thing on regular computers. What we do is protect servers against malware and rootkits. And the Linux mailserver or fileserver will run a virus scan before forwarding the mails to the employee’s Windows computers. That’s why ClamAV doesn’t come with a GUI because it’s supposed to run in the background on your mailserver or NAS, not on your computer…

    I’d recommend a virus scanner if you run Windows games and software (via Wine/Proton/Steam). Especially if they’re not from Steam but (pirated from) random places of the internet. If you run Linux software, ideally from the package repository, there’s little to no benefit in installing antivirus due to the lack of viruses.

    Pay attention to security though. There’s a lot of other nefarious stuff out there. Password brute forcing, phishing, regular fraud, attacks if you don’t do updates, a harddisk might fail…