I still haven't been able to download an Adobe Flashplayer that
works. Is there one in the Repositories?
On 2/16/09, *Luis Alberto* <address@hidden
<mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Ted Smith <address@hidden
<mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
On Mon, 2009-02-16 at 16:23 -0500, Bubba cakes wrote:
> Hi, all,
> I hope this is the right list...
>
> I have some basic questions, and I wonder if this is the
place to ask
> them.
>
Probably as good as any. :)
> I want to know about internet security, how to keep my
computer from
> being infected with viruses, spamware, spyware, adware,
> whatever-ware...
>
> Is there a program that I can run to check all my files and
drives for
> security problems?
>
> What about a firewall?
>
> Actually, I don't know what I need. I'm a construction guy,
and need
> you computer guys to tell me what to do.
>
You don't need any of the above.
Going through the list, there's no such thing as viruses, adware,
spyware, whatever, for GNU/Linux. This is for a combination of
reasons
-- the system isn't a very alluring target for bot herders,
but it's
also built much more securely than Windows, so it's much harder to
infect.
By default, gNewSense doesn't have any network services
active, meaning
there's no reason to use a firewall.
If you really want to run security programs, I suggest
chkrootkit and
rkhunter. They are programs that install themselves to run
automatically
every so often and report on how vulnerable or 'hacked' the system
looks. They can have a lot of false positives though, so
unless you want
to learn more about security, I wouldn't bother with them.
> I would like to be able to browse the internet without being
monitored
> by anyone. I would also like to send emails without
receiving ten
> freakin advertisements based on words I just sent to someone.
Is this
> possible?
>
In a sense. However, I don't think you're meaning exactly what
you're
asking.
You could set up Tor (there's a detailed guide on doing that on
<http://torproject.org>, follow the Ubuntu/Debian
instructions) for
anonymous browsing, but if you just want to avoid ads, then
just install
the Adblock extension for Firefox (I believe the package is called
adblock-plus, but if you just searched adblock in Add/Remove,
you'd find
it). Additionally...
> Is it possible to use the internet and email (Gmail) without
somebody
> always reading/monitoring my activities?
>
Not really. Email is a clear-text protocol. Your email
provider will be
able to read any emails you send via them, unless they are
encrypted.
Setting up email encryption is a more complex task that would
make this
a very long message, so I'll just refer you to the vast amount
of guides
on google. Note that it isn't particularly hard, just complicated.
In terms of ads directed at your email content, there's no way
to stop
google from gathering data from you if you use their service,
but you
can stop seeing them if you set up an email client like
Thunderbird or
Evolution.
> Is Gmail email using a proxy server? (I think it is, but
don't really
> know.)
>
No, definitely not. What do you mean by "proxy server", though?
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I couldn't say it any better.
--
Luis A. Guzmán García
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