Which is better 647

On Sunday 19 March 2006 20:26, (PeteCresswell) stood up and spoke the following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.misc...:

Both, really... ;-)

As for popularity, GNU-Linux still has a smaller userbase than Windows does on the home and office desktops. Those are the machines typically belonging to the less savvy computer users, and these are the users most targetted by malware writers. They know far too little about computers - they only use them - and they are in the majority.

In addition, Windows is far more vulnerable to malware because of its very design. Malware writers know this and of course find this to be a very receptive "market" for their stuff.

Another side thought - that I'm sure we've all had before - is the question as to whether Microsoft is not deliberately neglecting to enforce security in Windows, so that they can later on sell patches, or so that the anti-virus industry can make a living - and will thus continue to endorse the use of Windows; it's all about marketing strategy and consumer manipulation.

Windows also suffers from monoculture. Every Windows system - although there are multiple versions - is basically all the same, which increases the target base even more.

GNU-Linux comes in many different forms and GNU-Linux users are mainly more technologically send, and will tweak their systems to their own liking. Malware writers would have to target one or two specific distributions, but they couldn't possibly hope to affect all of them.

Everyone knows Windows is vulnerable to malware, even with protective third-party software added on. GNU-Linux on the other hand is quite resilient and obstructs the success of malware by its very design.

A simple example is that you can set up your system with all static data on read-only filesystems. This means that the root user would have to remount the filesystem as read-write before anything could write to it, including a process with root privileges. Filesystems are also much more secure. IPC is more secure, etc.

I'm quite sure that if GNU-Linux were to become more mainstream, we'd be seeing more efforts from the malware creators at targetting GNU-Linux - the incentive would be there - but I seriously doubt that it would ever reach even 10% of the proportions it does in Windows; not even if every single computer on the planet were running GNU-Linux only. ;-)

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)