this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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I don't think a Linux anti virus program would be such a big security win. Phishing is the biggest security threat to most users, and no amount of software can prevent that.
Sure, downloading and running random shit is a concern, but people in that group are a bit of a lost cause. The best solution for that is to harden the OS, prevent running executables through the GUI, or from user folders (I think SELinux could do that), disable sudo on the user account, and only allow installing Flatpaks. The security of Flathub may not be perfect, but it's a smaller attack surface than the whole internet.
But even if you do that, an Indian call center scam is still going to manipulate your grandma into buying Amazon gift cards, so... It's a lost cause.
touche. I don't think the existence of other threats is a reason to dismiss this one. And I don't think simply prohibiting running random executables is sufficient as it isn't 'most users' who are switching to Linux. The people likely to switch to Linux are also the people likely to want to run programs that aren't yet distributed in repos. I can imagine a scenario where the malware is hidden in a program hosted on a custom flatpak repo and requires permissions for normal operation that'd make flatseal ineffective for stopping the malware.
The ideal anti-virus in my mind would ignore programs installed from official repos and on access scan ones installed from anywhere else. It'd also keep track of critical vulnerabilities to give you a heads up about updating your system.