Interesting. I use a variety of anti-malware progs in Windows, so I haven’t seen any nasties in a long, long time. Also, having been a computer user for quite awhile I use caution and common sense.
In case you may not be familiar with it, a good site to check out any file or webpage you may think is “iffy” is:
It runs the file or URL through a mess of malware detection programs and shows you the results.
The nice thing about using Linux to malware-check Windows or do other repair work is that when Windows is “asleep” - not running - so is the malware, so it can’t hide.
You can also install Linux to a USB stick, which is handier than a CD/DVD to use and it actually runs pretty good as an operating system. It only uses the host’s PC CPU and memory. I have 3 or 4 different version on USB that I often run. The Lubuntu flavor of linux is my favorite for all around use.
And though it’s extremely rare to run into Linux malware, I use a paid anti-malware prog on the Linux side of my dual boot. It’s never run into any malware other than the harmless EICAR anti-malware test file I’ve used to test it. You can also use it on Windows (and I would suppose Macs) to see if your anti-malware progs catch it.
Info here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EICAR_test_file
Get test file(s) here:
http://www.eicar.org/85-0-Download.html
I’m getting a USB drive ready for Linux, still working on getting a few good games to install and run. THe newer version of Puppy, named Slacko, only had a couple of games so I’ve been trying to find some of the older ones I like and get them to work, it has most everything else I want and runs great on CD. Got it online, everything working, I probably won’t use it to transfer pictures from the camera for now, I like to keep them all in one place, and with over 150,000 pictures, that’s an issue. Don’t want to open up a new storage spot at this point. Everything goes on a big external drive periodically for backup, that would probably work well with Linux too but I haven’t tried it yet.
I’ve tried several different ones over the past 15 years. Feather, Damn Small, Puppy, Cloudy Skies (all astronomical), Ubuntu, Knoppix...I liked Knoppix really well, except that is was a little sluggish, mainly due to the GUI. Damn Small ws the first one I tried, it fits n a mini CD, and runs great, about everything you need in one small package. I used it online with dial up quite a lot about 10 years ago. Feather and Knoppix too. The only thing I found that gave me trouble was a webcam, and never used it anyway. I also had Mandrake installed on a second machine at home, full install, that was my main Internet machine, had everything but webcam working including laser jet printer and USB scanner, transferred pictures to it from my old camera, did almost all the word processing on it, like business cards and such, advertising and invoices for my computer shop, set lists for the band. It got to the point the only thing I used the Windows machine for was to play games and listen to music...Had it set up and XP running great, never put it online once in 6 years.
Once I moved here I don’t have the space, so I use this Windows laptop. Have the Slacko CD in right now just haven’t rebooted in a while so I’m running Window for now.