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 <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Ted Smith <[email protected]> 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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>> [email protected]
>> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users
>>
>> I couldn't say it any better.
>
>
> --
> Luis A. Guzmán García
>
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>
>
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