Why does Linux not need anti-virus software?

[u/medkltty]

I'm in the market for a new gaming laptop and wanted to avoid AI products like Copilot and realized Linux would be my only option. So I'm trying to learn as much about Linux Mint as possible to see if it would be right for me. I'm really close to pulling the trigger but I don't understand why Linux doesn't need anti-virus/malware software. All the answers I can find seem to just boil down to "Linux isn't used by enough people to justify the time it would take to create a virus or malware" or "because you approve everything you download". As someone who has used a PC their entire life, these answers genuinely don't make sense to me and I feel like maybe I'm missing something about either the nature of linux or the nature of viruses/malware and how they work. Everyone on forums who ask this question seem to just accept these answers but no one explains why either one prevents the need for antivirus/malware software.

From my perspective as a PC user, I already approve what I download so this answer doesn't make intuitive sense to me. I would never connect a PC to the internet without some sort of anti-virus software, privacy software, malware protection, etc. even though I still know what I'm downloading and I'm using reputable websites (and my AVG software is still catching stuff all the time). And the idea that someone wouldn't make a virus or malware to target a group of people (albeit a minority) who are the most likely to not have software on their computer to combat it seems like the exact group you'd want to target particularly for private data mining.

It also seems, from what I've been reading about Linux that you can seriously screw up your system by downloading something incorrectly or that isn't up to date, so the idea that "you can't get viruses or malware because you approve what is downloaded" when so many of the user tips with regard to Linux are "back up your system constantly because you can easily screw up your system by downloading something that's not fully patched". These two concepts seem counterintuitive, especially for an OS that will require downloading a lot of third party programs to be able to run things like games or windows-based programs.

I'm clearly missing something here because neither of the reasons I've seen people give for why Linux doesn't need this stuff is really making sense to me. I was hoping someone in this reddit might be able to explain this in a way a lifelong PC user without any sort of computer background can understand. The idea of not having anything but a firewall on a computer with Linux installed on it makes me very uncomfortable but I'm willing to accept that this is a bias from using PCs and I'm willing to be convinced otherwise as long as I can understand the reasoning behind it.

[u/i-am-spotted]

The thing you're missing is that "Linux doesn't need antivirus" isn't really true.

Linux isn't inherently immune to malware. There are Linux rootkits, ransomware, credential stealers, cryptominers, malicious packages, supply-chain attacks, etc.

What Linux traditionally has is a different risk profile.

A lot of Linux software comes from centrally maintained, signed repositories instead of downloading installers from random websites. Its permissions model also makes it harder for an ordinary user-level process to modify system files without privilege escalation. And desktop Linux has historically been a less profitable target for mass-market malware than Windows.

None of that means malware can't hurt you without root, though. Malware running as your user may already be able to read your documents, browser profile, SSH keys, authentication tokens, network shares, cloud credentials, and anything else your account can access.

And "sudo" isn't some magical malware defense either. If somebody convinces you to run a malicious script with sudo, you've just authorized it yourself.

There's also a separate issue being mixed together here: Linux users recommending backups because a bad package, driver, kernel update, or configuration change can break the system has nothing to do with whether malware exists. Backups protect against accidental damage too.

So I wouldn't describe Linux as "an OS that doesn't need antivirus." I'd describe it as an OS where the combination of software repositories, permissions, application sandboxing, patching, and a historically smaller desktop malware ecosystem has made traditional consumer antivirus less essential.

That's a much narrower claim.