Submitted by rich_c on March 12, 2009 - 7:39am
Simplistically, there are two schools of thought in the Linux community on the subject of having some sort of anti virus application running. Those that do, say it's to protect their Windows using contacts from getting anything nasty that just passed through... Those that don't are reluctant to waste system resources on something that is exceedingly unlikely to affect them. I don't run an AV app all the time, but I do perform a scan as and when the fancy takes me.
Going back to the point about not wanting to pass on anything nasty to Windows using contacts, I think I've come up with a solution that falls in between having to scan every email just in case and not bothering at all. I'm sure we've all had emails with a signature attached saying something like This email was scanned with XYZ Version 3.2 and was found to be free of malware. Well, my signature now reads: Sent using KMail version 1.9.9 running on SimplyMEPIS 8.0
Please scan any attachments as they will not have been checked for Windows viruses.
So, my Windows using contacts now have fair warning that there is a remote chance that I forwarded on something nasty in a 'vector' kind of way.
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Comments
Not bad. I already use a
by StormyJerry - Mar 12 2009 - 4:46pm
Not bad. I already use a business signature that ends with "A MEPIS Linux office" but now I will think of adding something else.
Interesting approach. I too
by richb - Mar 12 2009 - 9:06am
Interesting approach. I too very infrequently run a virus scan. I wonder. however, if your recipients really bother to scan the email based on your warning. The burden is on them. But, if in the admittedly rare instance they get a virus from your email, they probably will not get any solace from the fact you warned them.
On the other hand you are doing more than I am to avoid a problem.