Using Virtualbox safer than any antiblablabla software?

[Juanca]

So, This is the picture:

Suppose that I have a computer running on linux or mac os x, then no virus or trojans can affect me, right?
and i install virutal box to host windows xp and i use all the software for windows xp but everything is based on linux or os X then nothing can affect me.
This means I could get rid of all this software for protection,
Am I right?

Feel free to post your opinion on this idea :doh:

(this is only the exploration of an idea)

[_r.u.s.s.]

there are viruses for linux and mac. less of them but there still are

in any case, having a virtual box for windows xp definitely is more safe ,though i don't know to what do you caonsider to be "safe" because virtual box will emulate everything, so if some virus gets on your virtualbox xp your virtualbox xp will be infected

also, running a virtual box takes a lot of additional memory and CPU

[Juanca]

So you mean it will take more memory and cpu than: antispyware+ antivirus+ firewall+antimalware (and some of those you will have two) ?

isn't that the great thing all people that uses linux says, when they say their OS has no thread at all?
so using virtualbox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) would be like enjoying the best of linux and having the "wide world" of windows......

[Fruit Pie Jones]

I don't have any experience with Virtualbox, but it will almost certainly use more resources than a typical security suite. Virtualization software has to emulate all of the hardware that the guest OS needs in order to function, and that's pretty labor-intensive.

Regarding your initial question of whether it's safer: not necessarily. It depends on what you do with it. A guest OS inside a virtual environment can be infected by malware just like an OS running directly on hardware, and any important data stored inside that guest OS can be lost just as easily - unless you keep it isolated from the Internet by, say, disabling all virtual NICs. Now, if the guest OS does become infected, no matter how bad it gets, the infection will stay inside that guest OS and won't spread to your host OS or other guest OSes (well, not without a lot of help from you), so you're safer in that sense. Plus it's usually pretty easy to reinstall a guest OS if things get really bad.

The upshot: Safer? Depends. And you'll take a performance hit.

[AlumiuN]

Imagine Virtualbox as an impromptu iron lung. It's an awful lot safer than not having it, but you ain't gonna get anything serious done while you're in there. :)

[Kugerfang]

I haven't tried using sandbox software, but I think it might work.
http://www.sandboxie.com/

[_r.u.s.s.]

juanica you completely misread my post, read it again=P

[dosraider]

So, This is the picture:

Suppose that I have a computer running on linux or mac os x, then no virus or trojans can affect me, right?
Not right.

And that's my last post in this topic, I won't get into all that stuff once again. NO WAY.

[Edit]
To avoid yet another one of those idiotic derailed topics:
Not right for: no virus or trojans can affect me, much lesser chance to get infected, not: no chance.

[Titan]

The best viruspretection for Windows is still the user.
Don't go clicky on anything you get. Use your head before you go to a site that you haven't been to before.

[The Bard]

Yea, but what if it really seems like good porn? You know, a good pop-up saying ebony/teen choking on you-know-what, you gotta click that ****, even though you know it's dangerous.
That's why I'm always packing NOD32. If you gotta good antivirus software, and you're sure it works, you don't even notice it. IMO, antivirus software is the type of software you should pay for.

[Japo]

The principle of operation of antivirus software is that it will miss anything that's not in its database. So even the best AV (and it's impossible to conclude which one is it) doesn't protect against 100 per cent of attacks, and neither against 0-day attacks.

You shouldn't surf the Web, let alone risky sites, as admin:
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/advanced/useraccount.mspx
There's little that a virus can do if run from a limited user account, nothing important really.

About the virtual machine solution, I agree to what's been said: it can get infected the same, so the only advantage is that it's easier to flush and restore. For a real machine you can use disc image backups anyway. If you factor in the loss in performance, and consider that being safe is not an impossible mission, and that running as a limited user by default is less troublesome than using a VM, for me no thanks.

[rabadi]

isn't that the great thing all people that uses linux says, when they say their OS has no thread at all?
I am using Linux, and I'll say it's not true. As _r.u.s.s. have pointed out, there are viruses for Linux. It's just that they are much less in numbers compared to the Windows counterparts.

Instead of using VirtualBox (I use it but to try out other Linux distros), why don't you go dual-boot? You can then surf, open e-mail, etc. with Linux, and use Windows solely for games. You can play DOS games under Linux with DOSBox too.