<html> <head> <style> P { margin:0px; padding:0px } body { FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma } </style> </head> <body> >Sounds like you have limited experience with doz "security". Malware >that targets its security flaws is extraordinarily easy to acquire in >doz, and difficult to eradicate, short of reinstalling the whole OS and >apps. It's even possible (easy, so I hear) So you admit you have no actual experience to counter his 'limited' experience... >to acquire malware in the interval between installation and completion >of installing security updates online from M$. Do you really think that given adequate access (i.e. throw it up on the internet with no firewall) to a Linux system with known vulnerabilities this would not also be possible between the interval you install that system and manage to update it? What makes you believe then that Windows should magically behave any better. Of course, you can spin an updated install disk with the latest packages so that this is not the case with your Linux system. Of course, you can slipstream the install for any of Microsoft's more recent operating systems and expect the same. Look, I am no fan of a lot of Microsoft's business and marketing tactics; Microsoft has been inching it's way out of my computing experience slowly but surely over the last couple years. But this is the same kind of FUD Microsoft likes to spread about any of the *nix operating systems. A generic Fedora 7, Fedora 6, Fedora 5, (how far do you want to go back), Solaris, Mac OS X, etc. install is likely to have security flaws prior to being updated that are remotely exploitable under the proper circumstances. If you don't use yum or a similar tool to install any security updates to your Fedora installation, fail to run a firewall, and carelessly click on links, and open unexpected email attachments then you are no better than the masses of Windows users who fail to install their windows updates, fail to run a firewall, and carelessly click on links, and open unexpected email attachments. The difference is that because you are not running Windows you will probably go just a bit longer than them before managing to infect your system with one form of malware or another, only because most malware written today is directed at the much larger number of Windows computers out there. I run Mac OS X on my laptop and linux on everything else, resorting to Windows Vista for only an occasional game that I might want to play with friends. i might run Windows once a week tops. However, my wife uses Windows exclusively. She has no real interest in Linux, Mac OS X, and so on. She is diligent about installing those Critical and Recommended Windows updates, has the basic Windows Firewall set up, and uses common sense when browsing the web and reading email. She has NEVER had a problem with viruses, spyware, pop-ups, or any other form of malware. Conversely I have seen Linux and even Mac users who believe their system is an iron fortress simply for the fact that they are not running Windows, only to find root kits and other nastiness installed on their system down the road. And people will cry that the only way in which you can correct an infected Windows system is to reinstall the operating system, but I would argue that from my professional and personal experience that 99% of the time this is completely untrue. Again, do you really believe that when a system becomes infected with this garbage that there is no sound, technical, and methodical manner in which you can remove these programs, and restore the system? There are some truely nasty pieces of malware out there that will employ tactics such as attempting to reinstall themselves if all components are not removed, etc. I have had a miserable time cleaning up more than a few of these, but I have never had to give up on a machine and reinstall it, though time wise it may have been just as effective to reinstall one or two of them. Oh, and how does most of this start? User browses to website X and recieves popup Y that says you can get this absolutely nifty free program that installs super cool item Z (instant message icons, games, screensavers, and whatever crap), and Joe user thinks hey, what a great deal, and goes on and install it beginning the mess... Really, your poorly informed arguments do nothing for improving the cause of Linux. With respect, Jason P.S. I believe the operating systems name is Windows, not 'doz'; demeaning a product or making silly attacks against its name really are no way to make your case against the company. </body> </html>