95

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.

  1. is antivirus a necessity? I will be gaming and streaming on my new setup.

If yes then

  1. what are some ideal options? Paid or free.

Thanks for your responses in advance.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] treadful@lemmy.zip 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Generally speaking, in reverse order of strength of argument:

  • Linux is built a little more securely. There's a ton of caveats here but it is generally harder to privilege escalate. (inb4 someone sends me a list of escalation attacks)
  • The user base is generally more security conscious (i.e. doesn't just run random executables)
  • Doesn't have the same attack surface (like default exploitable services)
  • The ecosystem isn't a monoculture so it's harder to build one-size-fits-all malware
  • The market share is so low that it's rarely ever a target of malware

Mostly it just doesn't make sense for attackers looking for low hanging fruit to attack Linux machines.

[-] uranibaba@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

The last point is probably biggest point today. A hacker wants your money, and you as an individual do not have that much money. A company on the other hand, they can pay up big.

Since a lot of companies use Windows, they target that, because that is where the money is.

[-] ramble81@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago

Except servers. They are very much an attack vector there.

Nonsense. Hackers get money these days by holding data to ransom.

Not much data on personal computers.

[-] uranibaba@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Companies don't store ransomable data on employee's personal computers.

[-] uranibaba@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

So... viruses target Windows server rather than Windows?

[-] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

I think it is more about market share than anything. Viruses targeting the end user are, I think, fairly uncommon. But I don't think remote and local exploits are particularly rare since Linux has massive server market share. I don't have stats handy so maybe I'm full of it, idk.

I don't think Windows has much in the way of default exploitable services anymore. Neither does Linux. I mean back around 2000 it was kind of a nightmare on both platforms. But default configs have gotten pretty good in 20+ years.

I'm not aware of a whole lot preventing various local privilege escalation attacks on Linux but maybe there have been developments in the last several years that I'm not aware of?

I know Windows 10 implements some additional memory protections for the LSA subsystem process to address Pass-The-Hash attacks.

Linux still has setuid/setgid executables as one vector. But I would imagine various forms of kernel exploits are more or less similar to both.

this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
95 points (98.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35694 readers
1018 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS