this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2025
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I'm about to install bazzite on my wife's older (2017) Windows 10 machine, and I've been going over how to recreate everything she currently has. Most programs (even proprietary ones) are not an issue, but I'm not finding much in the antivirus department.

I never even thought to install one on my Linux machine (also on bazzite, but I have used other distros in the past). So although I am no stranger to Linux, this issue blindsided me.

I know clamav exists, and I'm educating myself on how to use it, but a GUI would be nice for the wife. She's not afraid of the terminal, but she likes the convenience of GUI programs.

Any suggestions? What do you use? Or is it just generally accepted that one should be careful and keep things up-to-date and that's enough?

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[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Exactly, and still the 60 million copies sold (of which maybe a quarter or so actually ever went online) was more than enough to make Win95 comically malware-infested.

I'd venture to say that close to every one of the 60 million copies of Desktop Linux OSes running goes online frequently, so there's much more potential Linux targets than there ever were Win95 targets. That's why I'm saying the "Linux is to niche to get malware" argument doesn't really work.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

OS security has gotten far better though, and there are a literal shitton more devices to target (like IOT crap) than someone's slighty out-of-date Linux install.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

But targets differ in value. Hack an IOT device and you can send some spam from it. Hack someone's PC and you can ransomware their family pictures or steal their crypto crap.