Star MSE's First Week: 4 Million Detections on 0.5 Million Machines
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 17th Oct 2009 12:45 UTC
Windows A little over two weeks ago, Microsoft released Microsoft Security Essentials, a security software suite protecting users of Windows against malware and viruses. The company has released data about the number of downloads and fixed infections, and the results are encouraging.
E-mail Print r 1   · Read More · 55 Comment(s) http://osne.ws/h93
Thread beginning with comment 390000
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
lemur2
Member since:
2007-02-17

Linux distros have central repositories, here I have to make up my mind once if I trust the people behind this repository, and then I can use the whole lot of software residing within.


It is actually a little easier than this. Because each Linux distribution has a repository system for software, and all of the various servers for that distribution mirror the exact same packages then you can work out from daily traffic statistics roughly how many people download their software from that set of packages. You can then find out how many people have ever complained even once of some malware being present in such a package delivered from said repositories.

I think you may find that the first number is surprisingly large, and the second number is zero. No malware ever delivered to an end users machine via the repositories. Impeccable record.

Then, from there, it is relatively easy to evaluate if this software distribution system is worthy of your trust, compared to the situation with Windows.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 3