does linux need a virus scanner?

I don't know what thier "virus" exactly mean, but I don't think the "original" meaning of virus (the one infects executable files) isn't possible for GNU/Linux (just see the UPX executable compressor). The trojan horses or worms are possible, though.

Also Pine is not free software :-)

btw - http://clamav.sourceforge.net is a free virus scanner for GNU/Linux as well as other operating systems (Windows users can use Cygwin to run it).

As long as you don't surf the web as root or any other user that has permissions for important data nothing can really happen.

Btw GNU was designed with security in mind from the start.

That's true, not free as in freedom, although you can get the source. What about elm?

Pine is my personal favourite email program, only I'm too lazy to connect it to a spam filter, so I use thunderbird.

All data is important.

If you're paranoid, you should create a separate user for web surfing, and another one for email. Emails that have been manually screened should be forwareded to yet another user, not kept in the account of the first email user.
But that's if you're paranoid. And then you don't run linux anyway, you'll be an openBSD user. Or maybe you will simply not have a computer that is connected to the net. Airwalls are better than firewalls.

Anyhow, I don't believe we'll get flooded by linux worms. There are too many flavors of linux and software running on it. Chances that a worm, after infecting one, will find another system it can run on are pretty slim.

DE/WM customization can be redone rather easily, so I'll have to disagree with that.

I certainly don't feel a need for a virus scanner. It might sound a bit irresponsible but really, where are those viruses? There is a reason why I feel safe.

I think Grisoft is a bit too optimistic about their GNU/Linux antivirus business, they may have alot less sales than they think they will/should.

Even if it is a dominating operating system, GNU/Linux is just fundamentally different from Windows and thus can't have as many succesfully invading viruses as Windows does. GNU/Linux is, as mentioned, designed with high security in mind, something Microsoft has been overlooking for a good deal of time. GNU/Linux is internet ready in full sense of the word while MS Windows isn't.

Yep, and that's a possibility you don't really have on Windows, and if there's gonna be in Vista it's gonna be very limited compared to GNU/Linux. But not being online as root would probably suffice in 99 percent of cases.

As for avoiding thunderbird because of flaws, while it makes sense I think that not even TB can compromise your system as badly as a windows virus could if you're running as normal user. The main problem there could be if you were hijacked to send out spam without your knowledge to people from your address book, but that's where again, the victims will mostly be people from your address book that use windows. :-D

And there's always the fact that Thunderbird is Free Software, which means any of these vulnerabilities are discovered and fixed very soon, before they could be massively exploited. I mostly use webmail client for my email though. :-)

Thanks
Daniel

Actually you can do that on XP pro, but on XP home everyone has enough rights to damage the whole system (although they do not have full administrator rights). I think the same is true for 2000 and NT, but security is an alien concept to the DOS based windows versions.
Anyhow, a good security model isn't worth much if you get to be administrator by default AND there are thousands of security bugs.