Viral freedom

Today when I checked my email I had received a warning from Symantec that the new Trojan.Peacomm had been identified and that Symantec, Clam-AV and Kaspersky were the only anti-virus agents that had really protected their users. That’s a relief because as the manager of nearly 500 Windows desktops it probably means that our LAN is safe. We run Symantec on our Windows servers and desktops and we’ve got ClamAV on our spam filter. As a home user I’m using Clam-AV for Windows and AVG. The notebook computer from which most of my work is done runs Ubuntu 7.04 so the trojan is pretty much a non-issue. I suppose a trojan could disrupt my Ubuntu desktop, but it’s a lot less likely running Linux than Microsoft Windows. I love running a desktop OS that doesn’t need to be preoccupied with virus protection and spyware. I know Mac Users have this luxury as well, but it’s even nicer on a free operating system like Ubuntu Linux. As a precaution to my Windows using friends I do run ClamAV on my Linux desktop. I’ve been using Linux as a primary desktop operating system at home for almost four years now. I’ve used a variety of distributions, but I’ve really become sold on Ubuntu. It’s just easy to run and especially for the non-geek user. I have all the functionality of the Windows XP without its foibles and omnipresent threats from viruses and spyware.