Linux and Spywares

[Matt Morgan]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 00:45:54 +0530, Rajev Mhasawade <rcmpost at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> Well after being criticised for my irrelavant question i need help this time! :)
> How do i keep off 'spies' from Linux?I visit this site
> (indiafm.com)regularly which downloads a cookie (or something which is
> identified as 'DirectHit' by Spybot) and identified as 'medium threat'
> by Spybot.
> I tried and tried but couldnt get any firewall like Zone Alarm.All
> they have is confusing interfaces hard to decipher anything!Plz
> suggest something..
> Rajev

"netfilter" is the firewall built in to all (or most) modern linuxes.
You can configure it with iptables, or with
system-config-securitylevel (which is not very specific).

But you don't need a firewall to stop spyware. Most spyware doesn't
work on Linux; although it could be a problem in the future, it's not
really a problem not. Cookies, however, are treated the same way in
Linux browsers as in Windows/etc. browsers. You can manage cookies in
your browser; if you're using Firefox it's in
Edit--Preferences--Privacy. There, you can reject all cookies, or
reject cookies from specific sites, as well as deleting cookies you
already have. I like Firefox's feature where it automatically blocks
cookies from sites that I've deleted cookies for ("Don't allow sites
that set removed cookies to set future cookies").