OSNews

"Man, if you're not a MS shill, stop acting like one! Are you that afraid of saying something bad against Windows that you must post corrections to your posts when you do?"

I didn't correct myself 'cause I was afraid of saying something bad about MS I did so because every slightly exploitable thing said about windows is the subject of dozens of lame jokes and quips and I'm kinda tired of them so I don't want to be the source of the next one through unfortunate wording.

"In any case, XP certainly didn't have security when it came out. How long does it take for a Vanilla XP install to get hacked if you connect it to the net? Hint: it less than the time it takes for you to download the necessary security packages from the net..."

Yes XP did have security. What you mean is that it wasn't secure enough to connect to the net with old versions without a firewall. That's not the same thing as "no security".

"XP SP2 solved many security issues, but not all. It is still a less secure OS than Linux or Mac OSX by default. Recently, there's been a rootkit being spread through an IM client!"

How do you quantify the assertion that it is less secure than linux or Mac? More stats from the ass of the anti-MSers. All the security concerns of XP are due to the user, the user chooses to run as root and run IMs as root, the OS allows you to run IMs with no system access. This is a double standard, linux users are assumed to use non-root accounts, whereas windows users are assumed to have admin accounts, and this is used as proof that windows is "teh insecure", it's getting lame, compare equal settings, it's possible to secure either linux or windows, calling windows insecure because lots of people don't bother with the OS's security features is disingenuous. Those same people would run as root on linux and enter their passwords for every nude screen saver they ran accross on the net, causing their boxes to get root kitted just as fast as a windows box. To paraphrase, "it's the user, stupid."

"That's not to mention that you can apparently install rootkits on a Windows XP PC simply by entering a Sony copy-protected CD..."

Same would happen to linux if you had autorun on and ran as root like most windows users do and would in linux. So it's a moot argument, and it's getting tiresome.

"The question is, with Microsoft's dismal security record, how can you be so confident that the next version will be secure?"

Because XP SP 2 is secure enough that I've seen no adware, spyware or viruses, and I've followed the developement of Vista so I know the new devotion to security MS devs have to security and that Vista will be even better in this regard.

it's getting lame, compare equal settings, it's possible to secure either linux or windows, calling windows insecure because lots of people don't bother with the OS's security features is disingenuous.

Notice I specifically said "less secure by default", not "could not be made as secure". I'm not being disingeneous, this is the current state of things.

Those same people would run as root on linux and enter their passwords for every nude screen saver they ran accross on the net, causing their boxes to get root kitted just as fast as a windows box.

You don't know that they would in the same proportions, however. In some distros, such as Ubuntu, there is no root user by default. Other distros make you create a separate user account during installation. Every little bit help. And of course, you can't make a file executable in Linux just by giving it the appropriate extension.

Same would happen to linux if you had autorun on and ran as root like most windows users do and would in linux. So it's a moot argument, and it's getting tiresome.

It's not a moot argument, exactly because there isn't an autorun in Linux, which improves safety (it pops a file manager window if it's a data CD, or starts a media player if its a CD/DVD). This is a significant advantage. Also, you don't know that most Windows users would run as root. In fact, all the Linux users I know were once Windows users (and some, like me, still are), and none of them run as root. It seems to me your basing your rebuttal on conjecture.

Anyway, I'll keep to the record so far. Arguing that MS's record on security has been good seems to me like an indefensible position.

"Same would happen to linux if you had autorun on and ran as root like most windows users do and would in linux."

One of Vista's selling points is that users will not all run as admin by default. Are you going to claim that isn't true, that they will continue to run as admin anyway? Surely not. Just so, most users would not run as root in Linux, it just isn't designed that way.