🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:03:35 +1000, sharonpst wrote:

> hi
> 
> i've just installed ubuntu 8.04 lts. i can't find the firewall and the
> antivirus. i know linux is safer than windows, but i assume that
> people still use a firewall, antivirus, spyware etc....

Not so much

A firewall is probably a good idea, but not absolutely necessary.  If you
want one you could look at firestarter (I believe that is one of the ones
available in the Ubuntu repositories.)  NB.  Linux (and unix in general)
firewalls are different in style to Windows ones.  You set them up to
allow / deny ports for incomming and / or outgoing for the entire machine.
That part is similar to Windows.  They don't however keep track which
application is allowed to use a particular port etc, and ask you on a per
application basis for permission.

There are antivirus programs, but not widely used and they never get any
work to do.  I haven't seen any anti-spyware programs for linux.

Some people do run rootkit detectors, especially if they run Internet
servers.

> 
> how safe is it to surf the net with the ubuntu cd live?

It should be pretty safe.  Everything gets reset for each boot.  I
wouldn't expect it to have any open services that would be accessible from
the Internet (especially when run behind a NAT router).  It is vaguely
possible to get an in-memory hack, but they won't be able to install
anything on your machine.  That isn't typically what modern hackers
are after. They want a recruit for their SPAM farm.