Alaska Chat II (Bethel, Hope: analysis, legal, mall)

[Floyd_Davidson]

Originally Posted by Nephler

There are a few viruses for Unix and/or Linux, just not very many and not very effective. Also, there is virus protection/detection software for Macs and Unix, McAfee is one and it's also the only one I will use for any OS.

The number that are "effective", is zero.

Not one of them works unless you purposely install it! That means you cannot get infected from email, as a result of browsing the net, or any of the typical ways that various Windows attacks work.

And while there is virus protection software that runs on Linux, it is not intended to protect Linux, but rather to provide a safe way to scan email or anything else that is destined to go to a Windows system.

[Nephler]

What they, the malware/virus writers, do find is ways to exploit the user interface like KDE, Gnome and the like. The holes are in those, not necessarily Unix/Linix it self. But you are still right, the user needs to "activate" the program. It just comes down to the user really. Stupid is what stupid does.

[bkyhi]

Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson

The number that are "effective", is zero.

Not one of them works unless you purposely install it! That means you cannot get infected from email, as a result of browsing the net, or any of the typical ways that various Windows attacks work.

And while there is virus protection software that runs on Linux, it is not intended to protect Linux, but rather to provide a safe way to scan email or anything else that is destined to go to a Windows system.

Almost but not quite. There are more threats than just viruses. Viruses OK - you have made a point. But trojans and worms can and have been a reality. Nothing in the recent past though.

I agree with you that the basic design and implementation of UNIX/Linux is superior to Windows. Making many of the windows issues not a problem.
There are still users. You can configure a linux system pretty badly, and run as root or with sudo priviledges, not update, use known buggy software etc. then you may have problems. Especially if I send you a file and you run it. Of course it will just affect the badly configured systems - not many of those. There's more to this whole thing than just what comes out of the box. No system is invulnerable if the user makes it so.

What may surprise a lot of people is that a properly hardened windows box, kept current, and remove most of the c%$p that's on there and Windows is quite worthy. I ran a number of security systems, firewalls, radius servers, encryption servers, scan engines etc on windows platforms with very little concern - about as much as I had for the Linux boxes. A vast majority of the patches for Windows were for stuff that I simple didn't have on those boxes. These were of course specialized systems not something the average user would even want - they just couldn't do much as that fun stuff wasn't on them. No browsing, no email etc. As a whole, linux/unix users are a bit above the average Windows user, it's just part of the linux thing. Linux boxes were configured similarily - if it wasn't needed then it wasn't on the box.

Not to put anyone down but I consider Windows users to the be lowest common denominator in the computer world. I think there are more complete idiots using Windows than there are implementations of Mac and Linux as a whole. Combine them with Windows being what it is and the mess is inevitable. I know very few people who run Windows as anything but an administrator (root equivalent), something very few Linux people would do.

I will give Windows credit for one other thing. Compatibility - I can still run many of my DOS apps and even apps for Window 2.0/3.0/3.1 under XP. Very few OS's allow that. That may also be part of the problem, allowing backward compability means you can't eliminate all the old code/usefulness. I haven't had any windows 1.3 apps for quite some time so I really don't know if they would run. But I'm sure a number of them would.

And I'm a windows user.

[ASpilot2be]

My name is Alec, and I am a PC

[warptman]

Originally Posted by ASpilot2be

My name is Alec, and I am a PC

lol! My name is Joe, I am also a PC!

[Nephler]

Joe and Alec, you guys give me a good laugh...thank you

And bkyhi, very true! Good points.

Good night all

[Grannysroost]

Originally Posted by ASpilot2be

My name is Alec, and I am a PC

Hey you removed the pig in a mall thingee...

[karfar]

ohmygod, I think there were 3 pages of geekness going on. I however have been watching Reality Bites tonight, anyone from the 90's remember that movie? One of my favorites.

[karfar]

Oh yeah, I heard there's a Kohls going up in Anchorage....Kohls is based in my hometown of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Shout out!!!!

[ASpilot2be]

Originally Posted by Grannysroost

Hey you removed the pig in a mall thingee...

I still see it