[NTLUG:Discuss] [Fwd: Re: Linux]

[terry]

-------- Original Message --------

[Anonymous] wrote:
> Interesting article on Linux versus Windows, check it out.
>  
> http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115770,00.asp

Yea, pretty good article. It's interesting, and the last two paragraphs
tell it all.  There are good points in the rest of it too, but...

I take exception with a couple points:

"But what's really in it for the average PC user? Cheaper software?
Fewer viruses? Relief from system crashes? Maybe, but don't necessarily
count on it."
He's showing his ignorance here.  "maybe but don't necessarily count on
it"?, ...Yes count on it, period, end of story. He's obviously not a
Linux user or he'd know better.  These are things you wouldn't know
about for sure unless you were a Linux user and he's just [clearly] not
a Linux user.  He must know something or he wouldn't be writing this
article, but he's telling more than he knows in that statement for sure.

I take exception with this statement:
"Microsoft is doing a creditable job of beefing up Windows XP's security."
That's being somewhat overly optimistic. MS has an impossible task,
they've got they're fingers in so many wholes in the dike they're
running out of fingers.  And guess what, they're coming out with a new
"Internet Search Engine", [to rival Yahoo and Google etc.].  Didn't Bill
Gates say they were going to concentrate all their efforts on making
their operating systems more secure?

For one thing, you have to have XP or Win2k installed and used properly
to make it even half way secure, or any where close to a secure network
operating system, and that's just not done.  It's not done by default
and 99.9 percent of the users don't bother to do anything to make it
secure. They insist on operating with admin privileges, they don't use
strong passwords, they don't in most cases even password protect the
Administrator account, they use IE and Outlook or Outlook Express.

You can make any MS Windows system way way more secure, just by simply
NOT using Internet Explore and Outlook or Outlook Express.  Will MS
users do that?  NO, absolutely not.  If you tell them it's a serious
problem, that it's the one biggest  problem on the internet, they just
look at you like you're some sort of lunatic and shake their heads.

But, if one would use MS XP or Win2k properly, install a firewall, like
just the free version of zone alarm, operate as limited user, use some
other browser other than IE and some other email client, like Eudora or
a web based email like yahoo mail, they would be relatively secure and
have very few problems.  (Not as stable and secure as a Linux system,
but not bad, or at least better anyway.)

Again, the last two paragraphs tell it all, pretty much.

-- 
but test everything; hold fast what is good,
1 Thessalonians 5:21


-- 
but test everything; hold fast what is good,
1 Thessalonians 5:21