Quoting: MalIt's all nice and good but far from the tipping point.

Does anyone have some kind of research/analisys that tries to identify the % at which point the "network effect" will trigger?

https://web.archive.org/web/20230204153910if_/https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.2202/1446-9022.1256/html [External Link]
This paper answers your question for a simplified model, but it's complex enough that I can't do the math.

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Quoting: Mangojuicedrinker

Quoting: NeoTheFoxI would never advise anyone to run anything that came out of Kaspersky Lab on their machines. Don't forget that Kaspersky lab is directly run by the Russian intelligence service, and it's on the US National Security risk list [External Link]

I've used Kaspersky for almost 4 years on 2x Win 7 systems and it is incredibly effective and incredibly light on resources. And you are helplessly mind-washed by media to believe words of US National Security, a government that spies on its own people, has 0 respect for their private internet activities, listens to them while they are inside electric-cars or using smart TVs, collects and sells their information, uses Microsoft OS to basically control and own the entire digital world, implements CPUs within CPUs (Intel Management Engine and equivalent of it on AMD CPUs) to backdoor their hardware at will and witch-hunts whistle blowers for life.
And what has Russia done exactly that you are on high alert? Where is their spyware?

There [External Link] are [External Link] lots [External Link] of [External Link] examples [External Link] of [External Link] Russian [External Link] malware [External Link].

Some of these were spear phishing and thus not a danger to the everyday citizen, but others certainly weren't.
I might still use Kaspersky's products though. I simply admit that most "... virus ..." software functions as a protection racket and should as long it's not open source not be included in everyday operations just in incident mangament.

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Quoting: MalThat linux isn't immure to malware and virus is knonwn. That kaspesky is the solution... it's questionable to say the least.

The general advice is to modify your kernel with anything that is not trusted and OSS. Know which repo you add to your apt. That already shuts down the most nasty risks. And we know it well enough... it's the reason why anti cheats refuse to support linux. They cannot spy without some kind of user approval... and they don't want to disclose what kind of spying they do.

Then for the rest (all kind of malicious activities outside kernel that is) it's the same as Windows. Educate your users to not do anything stupid on the web. And to not download snaps and the likes from untrusted sources. Which is easier said that done I suppose. Some antivirus support can definitely help here. But the antivirus itself needs to come from a trusted entity :)

It's a VRT(virus removal tool) those are supposed to be run on system critical systems of which we already know that it contains malware, but removing it is hard, in such a case root is a must.
I've been comparing it to ClamAV, which I now realize is unfair.

They also have an anti-virus for linux, but that one isn't new [External Link].
Apperantly there also open source vrt's [External Link]

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Quoting: amataiIt was bound to happen with the recent extension of surface attack on Linux. When software was only installed from the repo, the security was manageable, but with the growing availability of software outside the repo system (from AUR to snap, steam, flatpack, curl foo.sh | sudo, ...), there start to be a market for antivirus. It feels like the end of an era.

It feels, but isn't there already is a growing market of Linux anti-virus solutions.
Kaspersky is just one of the many.
Most of them are aimed at servers, but they do exist.

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What are your thoughts on this, and what do you use on your Linux desktop to keep it secure? Maybe it's time to give over some suggestions in the comments on that.

I use the ClamAV virus scanner, because it's open source.
Qua security measures.
I always first look for programs in apt or compile them myself.
Once in a while I check the active processes.
I use aggressive content blockers in the browser.
I use a webcam cap.
If ssh is included with my distro I remove it.
Usefull for servers not me.

Somtehing I don't do well:
I've done serious effort to give firefox and tor browser full access to my home directory, which they had locked itself out from in fear of compromising my system/

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For those looking for a list of competitors take the Linux table. [External Link]

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Quoting: pbSo it removes all viruses which are competition to Russian spyware? ;-)

Nearly all antivrus programs are "protection rackets".
MacAfee has strong connections with ransomware development and includes a cryptominer.
Lenovo is Chinese.
Microsoft is fully embedded in Prism.
Doesn't mean they can't help.

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Quoting: Pengling

Quoting: LoudTechieI thought it was ROSETTA, but that's not the name Apple uses in its announcement.

Rosetta was the tool used when Apple moved from PowerPC to x86 in 2006.

Thnx

Quoting: PenglingIt was invisible to the user, and from what little I understand was fairly similar in principle to what we know on Linux with Proton today, but it wasn't gaming-specific.

Don't let the WINE devs hear you say that Pengling.
They'll be all like: "that's emulation(translating processor instructions to other processor instructions), W(h)INE(Wine Is Not an Emulator)".:grin:

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

It's not really good, no. In the old days, avoiding platform-specific lock-in and having an OpenGL render path got you Linux and Mac. Ditching Linux but keeping Mac was a specific "we love those turtle necks, but fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks." Now, Mac work doesn't help Linux work at all - if you can avoid single-platform stuff and use Vulkan for both Windows and Linux you still need an entirely separate render path for Mac. And Mac has a smaller share than Linux. Making a Mac build but not a Linux build (which people still do) is quite misguided. So we get "fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks, and fuck those turtle necks: we're perfectly comfortable with Microsoft having a monopoly on the platform we can be bothered with" instead. Macs using Vulkan and not destroying their share of the gaming market would have been much better for us.

Tack onto that the move to ARM for Macs... so not only have they isolated themselves by not supporting Vulkan/OpenGL anymore, but currently supporting two architectures... Plus their ditching of 32bit kind of lends itself to believing that Apple will just drop some other support (like X86_64) some point soon, and you have developers just not wanting to support it.

At this point, supporting a Mac is probably similar to trying to support your game on the Switch, or PS5, etc. But at least the PS5/Xbox is still the same architecture as most computers.

Nah, with switch support you're quite certain the current config will stay supported.
With Mac support you can only speculate what will be dropped next.
I predict the next one will be the current screen proportions.
Also here is an example of something everyone(including consoles) supports except Apple: direct syscalls.
It's explicitly unsupported(you're supposed to use Apple libraries instead) and as such they often include or deprecate syscalls.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

I have a growing theory that a lot of these are actually being canceled by publishers who want deals with Microsoft or Sony... The amusing thing is that Linux users/developers have worked their way around such exclusivity with Wine based solutions. Apple on the other hand... basically depend on those same Wine-devs even to the point to incorporate Crossover into their Game Porting Tool (or whatever that thing is called).

I recently was having the conversation about Valheim, which is apparently developed on a Linux system (which explains why it supports OpenGL or Vulkan) and there is no Mac version. After Apple dropped all 32bit support and more or less killed support for vast swaths of games with that move, I can't imagine anyone else really trusts Apple to do good for gamers in general. So, it's no surprise that publishers/devs are dropping Mac support. They also figure 'Proton will let Linux users play the game' which is why some believe Proton is dangerous to the Linux ecosystem. I think Proton serves it's purpose (as older games for sure would never be ported) but I still maintain most newer games should be cross-platform.

The name of the "game porting toolkit" is literally "game porting toolkit" I thought it was ROSETTA, but that's not the name Apple uses in its announcement.
They also have a Direct3d to metal converter, a shader recompiler and a wayy to slick video trilogy.
It's actually quite funny.
They treat the developers as they would treat their users, little real information, slick interfaces, great marketing and acceptable underlying products.
Also they're a status symbol, so your game is in the marketing consistently a "high-end" game.

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