Linked by Amjith Ramanujam on Sat 19th Jul 2008 19:01 UTC, submitted by cypress
Linux and UNIX-like operating systems in general are regarded as being more secure for the common user, in contrast with operating systems that have "Windows" as part of their name. Why is that? When entering a dispute on the subject with a Windows user, the most common argument he tries to feed me is that Windows is more widespread, and therefore, more vulnerable. Apart from amusing myths like "Linux is only for servers" or "does it have a word processor?", the issue of Linux desktop security is still seriously misunderstood.
Permalink for comment 323798
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2006-01-16
I also never had virus problems with Windows although I don't use it since 2002.
Still if you followed the history of the industry in the last 10 years you found many technical aspects which _indeed_ made a difference in this issue. I would also claim that Windows, but much more than that Internet Explorer, even made this big malware industry possible and that without those products we would have a different security culture today.
If you just have a look at ActiveX, its design and then its outcome, you will see that it stands for itself, it is a big security nightmare which other platforms just never had.
I see a platform which was very insecure und vulnerable for over 10 years. It was outstanding in that regards. And _apart_ from that it was also the market dominating one. You can say this is history, but things didn't change as much as you might think. For example recently a worm spread which infects WMA files -- simple audio files! And it makes WMP to download itself. This is the same lesson MS did not learn a 1000 times before.
What I want to point out is that neither of those (security from hell, market dominance) could have the same impact alone. It's an issue which is both technical and non-technical. At the early stages almost no hacker wrote exploits for financial reasons. How much you can earn with that was found later, in fact after a very long time. It would have been much easier to build a botnet in 2000 than today, still in 2000 nobody was talking about botnets. Your marketshare argument holds truth but it doesn't make so much sense historically. Indeed there are other (technical!) reasons why Windows was always the main target, at least if you measure that by success. Do you really think in 2000 it wouldn't be much more funny to break into some big webservers instead of attacking your neighbor?
And apart from that, I am not fighting anything or anyone. Or could you point me out?
Edited 2008-07-20 20:29 UTC