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What about antivirus on Artix ?

Hello everyone,

I wanted to know the prevailing opinion of the forum about the use of antivirus: better to install it or not? I state that I am a very prudent and quite informed linux user, so first of all the software is downloaded exclusively from the official repositories.
That said, I believe the question remains valid.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

P.s. Among the most cited antivirus on the net is ClamAV.

George

Re: What about antivirus on Artix ?

Reply #1 –
Antivirus on artixlinux is same as antivirus on linux.... some peoples say yes, some peoples say no: it's not necessary.

Clam AntiVirus is an open source anti-virus toolkit for UNIX. Because ClamAV's main use is on file/mail servers for Windows desktops, it primarily detects Windows viruses and malware with its built-in signatures.

Feel free install it, if you think, that your computer will be better protect.

Why do I need anti-virus software?
- You are required to have a virus scanner installed by the terms of use of the company you work for or are doing business with.
- To scan files locally, over your network, or going outside your network. For example, via email.
- Windows viruses may potentially run via Wine.
-  Discovered GNU/Linux malware are mitigated.

Reasons Linux is less prone to malware

- Programs are run as normal user, not root user
-  Open source - more eyes on the system source code
-  Diverse system configurations
-  Less malware actors overall focus on linux. However, proficient malware actors do target linux.

(source: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Antivirus)

Just feel free...

Re: What about antivirus on Artix ?

Reply #2 –
Scareware / ad spamming is the most common issue I've encountered, e.g.
"Click Allow to verify that you are not a robot"
Don't press allow in the little box if it appears, because that allows push notifications. You can get messages appear even when the browser is closed telling you you have a malware problem and should call / pay someone. It's often not that harmful in software terms as it's usually just in the browser profile, but it may appear worse than it is.
This works on both Windows and Linux. Pale Moon is more resistant than Chromium or Firefox to this and other online problems. I'm not sure antivirus will protect you from this, although it might help, I don't know. Computer related phone scams are another danger for the unwary. Also watch out for accidentally revealing data in high res photos or adverts posted online that could allow accounts to be accessed or things forged or cloned.
Searching the repos and AUR for virus and rootkit brings up lots of packages. There are several alternatives in the AUR including Bit Defender and Kaspersky.
Artix is better than many "easy" distros for security, because many features are turned off by default, and you enable what you need.
I don't use antivirus as a matter of course but have run checks on odd occasions, although while it would be inconvenient, it wouldn't be impossible to reinstall in a worst case for me. I do have libaudit logging, mainly because I've used it for debugging other issues, and there are numerous other SELINUX tools apart from antivirus scanning that can improve security.