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[cicero]

Hi, everyone

I recently abandoned Windows for Mint 16 and have also installed Peppermint 4 on two of my friends laptops.
One of them does internet banking and has asked me what anti virus software she should use because of this.

Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations for a free or paid for anti virus package for Mint and/or 
Peppermint please?

I've seen it said that an anti virus package isn't needed for Linux but is that really true and is it really risk free?
I don't want to cause her a problem having talked her into using Peppermint.

Many thanks.

[SeZo]

Just google "do I need a virus checker on linux" (without the quotes) and you will get tons of hits.
I will not opinionate on whether you need it or not, but if you really need anti virus then check this round up out.
One thing I cannot figure out, why is internet banking any different from any other activity on the web. Would you not take the necessary procotions all the time?
The scammers, phisers and other con artists are there all the time. Exercising caution (think before click) will go a long way to protect yourselves.

[cicero]

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

I'll pass it on.

[cicero]

Just google "do I need a virus checker on linux" (without the quotes) and you will get tons of hits.
I will not opinionate on whether you need it or not, but if you really need anti virus then check this round up out.
One thing I cannot figure out, why is internet banking any different from any other activity on the web. Would you not take the necessary procotions all the time?
The scammers, phisers and other con artists are there all the time. Exercising caution (think before click) will go a long way to protect yourselves.

Hi, SeZo

I guess the only differences between internet banking and generally just browsing the web (say) is that provided you back up your files
then if the worst happens it's just a case of reinstalling everything, with banking it could mean money syphoned from your account.

The other issue I suppose is the attitude of the banks to the use of a Linux OS without antivirus and Windows with antivirus software
and whether they would try to claim that your computer was inherently unsafe.

I don't trust the banks in any case so personally don't do internet banking but as I was asked by my friend I have no wish to say
something and be proved wrong.  In the end it's her decision of course and as you say it's always best to be sensible and aware
when browsing the web whatever activity you are doing.

Cheers.

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Linux has proven itself over and over again to be secure .. AV won't help if there's no virus in the first place, and won't help against new viruses that aren't in their signature database yet.

Want my opinion .. to be as safe as it's possible to be for internet banking, you'd boot a non-persistent LiveCD/LiveUSB for internet banking
that way it's always a "clean" environment at each boot (as nothing can be saved).

As for banks opinion of Linux .. some don't like it, probably because they can't be bothered to support it for cutomers .. their own servers are probably running Linux.

You have 2 options
a) check with the bank if they still guarantee internet banking if you use Linux.
or
b) don't tell them .. and use the "User Agent Switcher" browser plugin:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/ (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/)
and this prebuilt list of user agents strings:
http://techpatterns.com/forums/about304.html (http://techpatterns.com/forums/about304.html)
so your web browser reports you're running Windows.

[cicero]

Hi, Mark

That's very interesting info. although I can't claim to understand option b) I'd need to do some thinking about that! 

Using a live CD/DVD or USB stick seems a very good idea as presumably nothing is saved to the HDD on internet
banking simply (i assume as I don't do it) you would be just checking your balance or making w'drawals etc which would
only be "saved" or actioned on the bank's servers?

Regards,

Doug

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Exactly, banking is from their servers .. and there'd be ZERO chance of any malicious software to sit on your system with a LiveCD/DVD or non-persistent LiveUSB .. as they're reset to default on every boot.



As for what "User Agent Switcher" does...

Brower UserAgent Strings are used by websites to help identify the browser used by a visiting surfer and can be useful for tailoring webpages to a particular web rendering engine (ie. firefox, internet explorer) or could also be used for locking out a particular browser from being able to access the site properly.

Go here:
http://whatismyuseragent.dotdoh.com/ (http://whatismyuseragent.dotdoh.com/)

as you can see, your web browser reports, which browser and OS you're using to the website.

Here's mine without the user agent switcher:-

Your browser's UserAgent string is: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux i686; rv:30.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/30.0

and now with user agent switcher:-

Your browser's UserAgent string is: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko
(any website I visit now thinks I'm running IE 11 on Windows 7 64bit)

or

Your browser's UserAgent string is: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/32.0.1667.0 Safari/537.36
(any website I visit now thinks I'm running Google Chrome 32 on Win8)

or

Your browser's UserAgent string is: Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.0) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.14
(any website I visit now thinks I'm running Opera 12.14 on Win Vista)

or indeed

Your browser's UserAgent string is: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_7_5) AppleWebKit/536.26.17 (KHTML like Gecko) Version/6.0.2 Safari/536.26.17
(any website I visit now thinks I'm running Safari 536.26.17 on Mac OS X 10.7.5)

All of the above were ACTUALLY me running Firefox 30 on Linux 32bit