Never trust an NPM library
this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2026
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Fuck node
... technical name for glory hole
OR
Your mom's a fuck node
bu-but so many libraries need funding!
Linux Users: haha those silly windows users, always searching the web for their software and getting viruses.
Linux Users: oh no I got malware by searching the AUR!
Donโt worry, I found a package on npm to help!
The AUR is still safer. One, it is at least minimally moderated. If a malicious package is detected, it can be reported and removed. Two, the installer is usually not just a black box executable. Three, most of the build and runtime dependencies are from the official Arch repos, which provides some protection against supply chain attacks. For Windows installers, you have to trust the distributor to bundle clean DLLs (for that matter, the same applies to AppImages).
But if it starts downloading anything from NPM... ^C and run.
The most unsafe factor of the AUR is aur helpers and their goal to dumb everything down and streamline the process as if the AUR where an official repo
Ye my reaction to this was basically uninstalling yay to force me to do it manually
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By misusing the AUR and ignoring every warning telling you to read and understand the pkgbuild or don't do it.
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The more popular Linux becomes, the less true this will be.
Avoid success at all costs - Simon Peyton Jones
Tbf most major attacks we saw recently are cross-platform thanks to npm. AUR has always been a security risk.
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btw, I use malware
Microslop is nervous now that Linux is popular enough to attack.
Linux has always been the bigger target. Even microslop uses linux for its severs.
I'm gonna assume that their servers are not installing stuff from AUR though
I would hope so too
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I don't use Arch, BTW. So the biggest NPM threat vector on my machine is still VSCode.
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Inverted security by obscurity
Obscurity by security?
Sescurity by Obcurity
Obituary by Sorcery
I avoid ~~orphaned~~ unmaintained packages and I wait a few days before I type yay
You're no fun
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I never had any issues on TempleOS.
Zero remote exploits since it was released. That's what divinely-inspired coding looks like, everyone.
Out of curiosity, is that actually true? Surely our lord and saviour must have made a tiny slip-up
Edit: Apparently TempleOS doesn't have networking
It is networked >!to Gฬทอฬฬฬฬฬอฬฅอฬผฬ ฬฉอoฬทฬฬ ออฬอฬอฬฝอฬญฬชฬฎฬอฬจฬฬนฬญฬคออฬชฬขdฬทฬฬฝฬฬฬพอ ฬฬอฬฎออฬฅฬก!<
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My OS is a temple. ๐ง
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And you believe that makes you safe?
Shit like this is a blemish on the Linux community.
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Also, an ad blocker.
I was on arch as a vestige from my school days, having never quite found the time to switch to something more stable. When I saw the news over the weekend, I checked and found 1 would-be-infected package on my machine that was thankfully months out of date. I'm well past the point of wanting to examine PKGBUILDs every time (hence the out of date package). But, instead of just removing AUR packages and sticking to arch repos, I decided to sweep up the technical debt by wiping and installing Fedora. I'm liking it so far, minus the absolute pain in the ass that is Nvidia on Linux. Fuck academics and their insistence on writing everything targeting CUDA; otherwise, I'd have saved a good bit of money a few years ago with a much more compatible AMD card.
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Arch users just randomly dropping "I use Arch btw" everywhere, it was only a matter of time.
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So what are good antivirus options for Linux? is it still pretty much just ClamAV?
Our company uses eset https://www.eset.com/us/home/antivirus/
But afaik it costs money to really work.
But your brain should be the best antivirus you have.
But your brain should be the best antivirus you have.
Is there an AUR package for it? seems not in the official repo
But your brain should be the best antivirus you have.
It's useful to use brain, but any security layer has holes which is why it's good to have several layers. Some attacks might be way beyond user's understanding or come from trusted sources.
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one thread I found from 2 years ago where someone asked for the same thing, a lot of the replies are just "you don't need antivirus on Linux" lmao
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With the old package managers safety was simple...trust the developers, user their packages. 10000 downloads? Easy! 1 download.... ๐ค Maybe skip for now.
Now with executables like mac and Windows it's easier to sneak something in. You still rely on trust. But now you've got AI in the game mudding the waters.
It was certainly a weekend.
Yeah I'm pretty glad that I've been behind in upgrading my aur packages recently.
I learnt a lesson yeah. It looks like I got away, there's no rootkit, I found nothing weird running, I don't have npm Installed, and up until now it doesn't seem like the packages I had installed were compromised. But I had way more AUR packages installed than I was aware of. And I was just updating them without really caring about the pkgbuild, I have better things to do. Multiple packages were outdated crap that shouldn't have been there anymore.
I was careless and took too much risk. I reduced the Installed AUR packages to a minimum, and from now on I will verify the PKGBUILDs on every update. Maybe Arch isn't really what I need. I'm on the LTS kernel and I no longer really use the AUR. But switching will be a huge hassle and this setup will work well from here on out, so I'll stick to it for now
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Everyone knows if you use Kali you're immune to malware
I am at "no fucking yays and the bunch, check the package create/update dates, read PKGBUILD, only update when necessary". Has served me well so far
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