Submitted 8 months ago by spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works to [deleted]
I have been computer free for probably 15ish years until I recently bought and set up a RPi4 with Linux. It’s been fun but I’m not really a super user so I’m looking to back to Windows as my main OS.
If yes then
Thanks for your responses in advance.
Like others have said, Windows Defender, but also an ad blocker extension for your web browser. I’d recommend Ad Nauseam -which is ublock origin under the hood- and Firefox over Chrome. All of those are free.
I’ve never even had antivirus other than windows defender. Lol
Windows Defender should be more than good enough for most users. Just make sure to use an adblocker (such as UBlock Origin), only visit HTTPS sites as much as you can (you should see a lock in the corner of the URL bar on most browsers) and ensure you always virus-scan programs you downloaded before running them.
Also, exercise caution on the Internet in general. Never just click "yes" when a program asks for admin permission - make sure you check exactly which program is trying to do it and that the publisher is reasonable. Never exit read-only mode on Office-suite documents unless you know the document is for-sure safe (exiting read-only mode allows macros to run).
Doing all of this, Windows Defender should do fine. I'm assuming 99% of this is common sense for you though, since you've already found your way to the Fediverse!
Don’t worry, I’ll run a VM in Linux to keep them at bay!
Just use Defender
Linux virus are uncommon but they exist. If you’re worried about it, ClamAV is free and you can just run a scan from time to time.
Is there any real world testing of Clam’s antivirus performance?
Yes. It was done most recently in 2022
In that same study, ClamAV performed relatively well at detecting certain types of malware in certain types of files (E.g. docx files, dil files, elf files, doc files and exe files), but was less effective in detecting malware in jar files, js files, vbs files, z files, rar files, and xlsb files. In addition, ClamAV performed well to detect a few top level categories of malware like Trojans & Botnets but performed poorly on other malware types like Crypto Miners, RATs and Info Stealers.
CountVon@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
I don’t think dedicated antivirus software is really required anymore. I haven’t run third-party AV software on any of my systems in the last decade.
On Windows, the built-in Windows Defender is good enough for most use cases. When it first launched Defender had a pretty bad track record at stopping viruses, but now it routinely ranks at the top.
On Linux, antivirus software has never really been required. One major exception I can think of would be if you’re running a file server or mail server that talks to OSX or Windows systems. Even then the AV software isn’t really there to protect the server, it’s there to make sure you don’t pass malware or viruses to those non-Linux clients.