Best Anti-virus for Linux?

The question is a little more complex than just the best antivirus for Linux. While Linux is immune to most Windows viruses, and I run the firewall and antivirus that were part of the distro, I do use my work machine on networks with windows PCs and largely non-technical users. As you can imagine, those machines get infected fairly regularly, and I want to make sure that my laptop can't act as a carrier as I move between networks.

Are there any antiviruses for Linux that don't just check for Linux-only viruses, but that would stop a Windows virus loading itself even if it couldn't run?

 

It depends on what distro you have installed, in the case of ubuntu they do have a firewall in their software distro. Since I have never needed to install a firewall since I am the only one that uses my computer I don't know if it's any good.

 

A firewall may stop intrusions from hackers trying to access your machine directly, but it wouldn't stop viruses. You could consider Clam antivirus or another antivirus mentioned here.

 

I don't think a virus could load itself or write files to your linux box, what could happen is that you could share infected files and the spread them when you send them to other people via something like a network share or something like that. Linux anti virus are actually a common thing since a lot of linux boxes are in the middle of Windows PC networks acting as routers, file servers or SMTP servers. ClamAV is the most common one plus it is open source so if you are into supporting the open source philosophy and all that that's the one that you should use out of principle, that being said, you have a lot of free (as in gratis) alternatives from the major anti virus vendors like AVG, Avast or Comodo.

 

Yes, malware can, will, and does infect computers using Linux. It is not as common, and malware has an uphill battle on a Linux system, but there is malware for Linux in the wild and it can be an issue. That said, with a properly configured system with an educated user antivirus probably isn't mandatory in the way it is with Windows. Unless it is a server environment, in the case of a server antivirus is a must.

As for a recommendation, I'm going to have to suggest something better than ClamAV as it's detection rates are abysmal while it's false positive ratio is high. Sophos makes a real-time antivirus solution for Linux systems that you may download and use free of charge that offers better protection.

 

Thanks for the share
I found these points funny, so the big problem isn't Linux but like usual windows. lol

• 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 a Windows drive in your PC
• to scan a Windows-based network attached server or hard drive
• to scan Windows machines over a network
• to protect a Windows virtual machine from within the virtual machine
• to scan files you are going to send to other people
• to scan e-mail you are going to forward to other people
  
  
• some Windows viruses can run with Wine.
  

 

Antivirus products usually use platform independent heuristic analysis of varying levels and effectiveness. When you say virus I'm guessing you really mean malware, because actual viruses are very rare, contrary to popular belief. The computer virus is only a very small subset of potential malware out there.