Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| reply to A Better OS
Re: People I know (of).....
Sorry, but it's not so much the OS as it is the person using the OS. I run Windows and remain virus and spyware free because I know how to practice safe computing.
On a trip to my brother-in-law's this weekend, I took it upon myself to clean his computer system. He had 474
spyware "hits" as found by Ad-Aware and 300+ as found by Spybot after Ad-Aware was done. This amounted to at least 8 different spyware programs (4 running at the same time). I lost count after a bit. He also had a trojan horse virus.
He hadn't updated the anti-virus program that I set him up with, or installed any Windows Updates for awhile. He also went to Golden Palace casino and downloaded some software from them to gamble online a bit. (He thought they were a reputable company.)
Now if he were to wipe his drive clean and install Linux, would he be 100% secure? The answer is no, because he would likely leave unneeded services running, run unknown programs (e.g. trojans), and generally follow unsafe computing practices. Not being on the "target of choice" OS would afford some protection, but his unsafe computing practices were the root cause, not the OS he was running.
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-Jason Levine
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/
http://www.PCQandA.com/
http://www.urateit.com/ |
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hedyd4u
Premium
join:2003-12-16
Schenectady, NY
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On a trip to my brother-in-law's this weekend, I took it upon myself to clean his computer system. He had 474
spyware "hits" as found by Ad-Aware and 300+ as found by Spybot after Ad-Aware was done. This amounted to at least 8 different spyware programs (4 running at the same time). I lost count after a bit. He also had a trojan horse virus.
A co-worker of mine had 1200 spyware hits computer was moving at snails pace. I agree with user error being the biggest problem. That is why my wife can not use my computer and I get the joy of fixing hers. |
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Hall
Premium,MVM
join:2000-04-28
Dayton, OH | How many of those "spyware hits" were (harmless) cookies ?? |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA | reply to hedyd4u
I guess I'm lucky. My wife is computer savvy and knows enough to keep the computer clean of spyware (or come to me if there's something she's not sure of).  |
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