[CS-FSLUG] Desktop Linux Version of avast!

[Greg Slade]

> So what's wrong with the plethora of libre security tools for
> GNU/Linux systems?

Like I said, I'm still doing the research. For antivirus, there are a 
couple of sites which do comparative testing, so one of the things on my 
plate is to isolate out the tests specifically on Linux tools, and 
figure out which ones are most effective.

As one example, Norman doesn't have particularly good scores on the 
Virus Bulletin tests, but if you look at just the tests on Linux, the 
results are much better. Thus, while I wouldn't recommend it for Windows 
users, I may recommend it for Linux users.

I should state right out that I have no interest in picking one tool and 
telling people "you must use this": partly, that's because I resent it 
when anybody tries to coerce me, so why should I coerce anyone else, and 
partly, it's because we're not in a position to tell our users  that 
they "must" use any particular tools. Therefore, in each class of tool, 
what I'm attempting to do is identify a shortlist of tools which are 
"recommended", and another list of tools which are "acceptable" for use 
in our network. Beyond that, I have to leave it up to our users to make 
their decisions on what to use, based on factors like price, size of 
download (a number of our users are in locations where dialup is the 
only way to get online), availability in their language, export 
restrictions, user interface, or whatever.

In any case, I haven't even finished compiling the numbers on avast!, so 
I can't say whether it's worth putting onto either shortlist, but since 
I managed to get that odd little inconsistency cleared up, I thought I'd 
better share that knowledge for the benefit of anyone else who is 
looking for the same stuff I am.

Greg

-- 
Greg Slade
Long ago, there lived a creature with a voice like a vacuum cleaner.
We know little about it, but we do know that it ate cats.