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I have many friends which are Windows users and I wont to keep my system and my flash drives virus-free for obvious reasons.

Recently, after I posted a question on Ask Ubuntu, I was encouraged to try Bitdefender for Unices. I have installed Bitdefender via command line, because it is easier. And also, I have installed Comodo Antivirus. Both of them are interesting apps and I was able to clean my flash drives. Still, I wont to try other Antivirus software as well.

So my questions are:

  • Can I keep both antiviruses installed (and install others too)? I know that when I was on Windows I was told that I should keep only one antivirus installed because two such software can enter in some conflict. I remember that I had once two antiviruses installed, but one of them was set on inactive. In order to scan the PC I used them alternatively, each of them avoiding the quarantine folder of the other software.

  • So, having in mind my Windows experience regarding these Antivirus apps, what attitude should I have when I'm on Linux? Is is OK to install several such apps (in order to use them paranoically to scan flash drives?).

  • And if this is OK, what settings should I have in order to avoid conflicts between them?

  • Should I ask them to avoid the quarantine folder as I did in Windows?

Sorry for the complex question, but I don't think is worthy to ask several tiny things when I can ask all of them considering the fact that they are inter-related. thank you in advance for your patience and explications!

Community
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Cristiana Nicolae
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2 Answers2

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Windows viruses will in most of the cases do nothing in Linux, so seen statistically you will be as safe as you are now without installing any antivirus software. I personally consider antivirus software to be on its own a kind of virus: you have no control what it really does and to whom they report your private data, they can delete files they do not like at will and just tell you it was virus (by mistake, or because someone pays them to do that), they spread around and multiply themselves using social fear, they form a net you cannot control and that runs arbitrary code.

This being said, if you trust these antivirus software programs and you find them good, there is nothing technically that prevents you to install as many different antivirus software programs as you like at the same time. They will compete with each other for system resources, for file access (file access is less an issue on Linux than on Windows), and may detect each other hooks as viruses, but if they are coded properly they will handle any special errors correctly. The more you install the more false positives you may get - that is, something that is no really a virus will be identified wrongly as such. However, for some people, it is always better to kill 10 innocents more, than leave one that is possibly guilty escape - same applies to hunting for computer viruses. You can of course always report any issues as bugs to the antivirus vendors.

So as long as your system runs fast and you are happy with the results, you can install two or more antivirus software programs at the same time - if that makes you feel safer. For sure, you should give each of them another quarantine folder location and exclude that one from each other scans.

ppp
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I am a Linux user, my friends are not. But they do call me to help them solve PC-related problems. In order to that, I often have to use my flash drives. So I have to keep my drives clean in order to avoid infecting my friends' machines.

You normally should just need Clam-AV and just scan your memory while swapping from a friend to the next or better yet, don't store personal/important stuff while helping your friend, if you plug the memory in your system and find some files that weren't there, is pretty obvious that that friends is infected. It doesn't matter that you keep the flash drive clean since the source/root of the viruses are not cleaned (Windows). The flash drives are only transmission agents and keeping them clean is just trying to hide the sun with a finger.

Fix your friends viruses (maybe total re-installation) and then keep them clean with a good antivirus, aka Linux.

Braiam
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