Virus partition transfer.

No,Ubuntu can not be affected by viruses.Yes,viruses maed to affect Windows can be transfered from Ubuntu to Windows and they will harm your Windows(becausse they are made to do that).You can read more about that https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Antivirus and http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=510812&highlight=security

There are a lot of free virus scanners. Which do you suggest I get. I would
like one that would prevent, find, and get rid of the viruses.

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 1:21 AM, zvacet <<email address hidden>
> wrote:

> Your question #82704 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/82704
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> zvacet proposed the following answer:
> No,Ubuntu can not be affected by viruses.Yes,viruses maed to affect
> Windows can be transfered from Ubuntu to Windows and they will harm your
> Windows(becausse they are made to do that).You can read more about that
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Antivirus and
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=510812&highlight=security
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
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Hi :)

I really like "ClamAv". If you attempt to install "clamtk" then that gives a great little front-end gui that looks quite retro-chic but does have the powerful Clamscan" doing all the work. Trying to install "clamtk" pulls in about 14 dependencies which are all vital and include clamav, clamscan and the libraries and the other things it needs.

It says it doesn't get rid of viruses and this is because it removes entire file to quarantine, just as almost every antivirus does. There is a much cleverer linux antivirus that is supposed to be able to extract the virus from the file leaving the file intact but it's very old now and i am not sure it is being actively maintained.

Note that linux itself almost never suffers from malware. There's less than 40 listed and most of those are developed to test a systems vulnerability so you have to compile them from source code and really work quite hard to make them work!

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Hi again :)

Errr, it's usually the firewall that prevents access to external threats rather than the anti-virus. Ubuntu has a firewall installed by default but you can always add a front-end to it if you want a nice gui to see what it's up to, and perhaps add exceptions to allow certain things through. Most distros, not just Ubuntu, seem to use "Firestarter" quite often as the front-end :)

Both the anti-virus scanners and the firewall and front-ends are free. Check the links that Zvacet gave :)

I hope this helps!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)