I’m still in the research phase of switching to Linux and don’t know if this concern is reasonable. I’m not tech savvy. I’m comfortable in the windows ecosystem and could use the dos prompt fine when they used it. I played with QBasic and C++ when I was younger and have built a few computers but that was a couple decades+ ago.
My concern is dealing with malware. I know that Linux has less issues with malware than Windows but, as I understand it, that’s primarily because it has a comparatively small market share. I feel like I’m getting into Linux just as it’s getting more popular and that it will get worse if the EU moves away from Microsoft because they will most likely adopt some form of Linux as their new standard. More less tech savvy people like me moving to Linux makes it a juicier target for people who create and use malicious software. It’s not a reason to stay with Windows but is it a reasonable concern? Are there sufficient tools for people who don’t really know what they’re doing to be reasonably secure on Linux and will they keep up if the threat profile expands as Linux picks up more users?
Its definitely something to keep in your mind with any computer. What I will say to assure you, is that the tools you are used to using on Windows for protection have equivalents for Linux. ClamAV for antivirus, firewalls, and anti malware software are available in most distros repos.
If you want to be more confident in your security knowledge on Linux, I recommend reading up on the basic permission systems for Linux. Make an isolated folder to explore
chmod,chown, and Linux groups and see how accessing files with different permissions works. You can even look at SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) for more of an idea of how kernel security can work.Permissions: check out the Concessio app (available from Flathub). Permissions are confusing for new Linux users and the app explains how they work and can generate them in numeric and symbolic formats for command line use.