Personal preference doesn't actually mean anything. If I leap off a bridge, that was my choice. Hence personal preference. Doesn't make it a smart thing to do.

It doesn't make it an idiotic thing to do either.

Firefox for the win.

I'm sure I could kill someone with my computer if I hit them enough. The monitor is pretty heavy.

On topic: I'm happy google is locked in my home button of my browser so I don't misspell it. Although I'm wondering about the setup of that computer. Is it up to date with service packs and such and were the anti spyware tools there from the start?

Off topic: I use firefox myself, because IE didn't support tabbed browsing and I liked that feature. Now it has it, but I find the layout of the new IE not that easy to work with. Also when designing websites firefox is much stricter which I like. However only a bad webdesigner uses one browser to check his sites with. That being said I should really install opera as well

Reason firefox is "better" for security is that it's less commonly used, thus less leaks are found and thus less spyware works on it. Simple as that. If linux were the world's "standard" operating system you'd see tons of virusses for it. Right now you don't, because spyware and virus authors frankly aren't interested in the smaller portion of the market. However saying using mac/linux/whatever and implying that way you don't need a virusscanner on that is pretty dumb. I've seen the mac of a collegue of my dad after it got hit by a virus, poor thing had to be fully reinstalled. So yeah, don't bash people for what they use, some like the standard things and other use alternatives because of a specific reason.

Off topic: Firefoxx slowly eats up memory until I run out and my computer crashes. I've been told that this is because of the incredibly stupid default caching options, and that it's trivial to turn it off. For the life of me, I can not find the option that causes this problem. Can someone perchance point it out for me?

Can't find any caching options either. But have you tried installing firefox 2? Firefox does use a bit more system resources than IE, since it replaces things that IE just uses from windows itsself.

QFT, as the trend goes.

Whats a VD?

VD = Venereal Disease which is a term for sexually transmitted diseases. Cause of how Venus was the Roman Goddess of Love and all. It's an older term than STDs.

My roommate tried it on his lappy and nothing happened. He's using the Fox of Flames and he got one pop-up and then Firefox told him that it blocked a pop-up and that was all. -shrug- Nothing too exciting.

And with Firefox there's the little Google box up in the corner, that's helps that misspelling thing. Especially when you can just hit CTRL+K and it makes the Google box the active selection. And with the newest update you can add more than Google. I have it set up to where it can search Google, Ebay, YouTube, Amazon, IMDB, and Food Network. -shrug-

I Firefox

The firefox memory leak is a quite a big problem. I find that the forums and using gmail chat make the problem worse.

The sad part is that IE uses up more memory then firefox after the memory leak. So I just close firefox everytime it hits 130K.

opened in IE 7, no popups, no spyware

opened in firefox 1.5, no popups, 1 spyware alert from my McAfee

I haven't experienced the Firefox memory leak. I still use version 1.5.0.9. I empty my history and cache and do my stuff and my laptop runs just fine for the running. I did experience it with IE, which is why I switched to Firefox.

You see that bug report about fire fox and how it broke up this couple?

It was something like firefox's security privs screwed up between windows accounts and this woman found out that her fiance was browsing porn sites and because of the bug she got all his passwords as well.

She then wrote out a very polite bug report about how it had broke up her relationship or something but she wasn't blaming firefox just reporting that it could have been more serious had someone been using credit card details or something like that

Actually, the argument you were responding to is completely valid. The problem with the people writing the page which you linked here is that they are biased already toward *nix systems, and so are defending them with random opinions rather than any real logic. Their logic doesn't even quite flow, unless I'm misunderstanding. They say that 1. Unix is actually used quite a bit outside of the desktop market, and 2. there are a lot of hackers, and Unix is used quite a bit outside of the desktop market. In reality both of their points are the same - there's enough *nix out there that it should be getting hit.

The fact of the matter is that linux server systems DO get hit quite a bit, and admins are forced to stay completely up-to-date with the latest patches and fixes, just like a windows system. However, these are far lest publicized because 1. they rarely affect individuals and 2. Linux admins are typically more technologically adept and do a fairly good job of keeping their products up-to-date, so these holes rarely manifest themselves in any moving way.

Also, the writers misunderstand the ponit of the argument they're answering. They paint a strawman of the argument, saying its proponents claim that virus writers don't write for *nix because it's obscure to them and they don't understand it. The reality of it is that the writers aim for the larger, technologically inferior population that uses windows on their home PC. Really, if given the choice between a king size candy bar and a hersey's kiss, wouldn't most people take the candy bar?

Back on the other (equally off-topic) topic of IE, I use it for activX controls, which I actually use quite a bit for different websites. Firefox is secure, but it has its own problems that have been mentioned. Both have comparable features (though IE has some problems with a few of its dlls that might interfere with com objects embedded in other applications...it's easy to fix though), the only real difference is better functionality and layout - in my opinion - in IE vs. better security in FireFox.

And on the real topic...I keep the google searchbox in my browser to make that easier. You should also be careful about misspelling a few other things, like addictinggames.com (don't put a hyphen in there!). I figured that one out while working in the computer lab at my christian university a few years ago, with my boss sitting behind me...

I don't expect Linux to be safe if I let security updates go by month after month after month - There's trust in a system's security, and then there's just plain naïvete.

I do, however, expect Linux to be far, far more secure than Windows systems. Linux is responsible for more servers than Windows; an effective zero-day attack on any common Linux server application (SSH, BIND, Apache, whatever) would wreck havoc in the server industry. But it just does not happen. It happens to Windows, of course - MyDoom and such making servers drop like flies - but Linux vulnerabilities that give malicious code escalation to root so they can screw something up are so rare as to be insignificant and bizarre.
Their argument isn't that virus writers don't understand Unix - It is that they do, and they try, and they fail. The notion that Linux is more secure because it's less used has been beaten to death by security specialists, and nobody who is actually in the know - Regardless of their Unix bias - actually believes in that. It's a dead horse. It's the faulty, factually inaccurate argument that just keeps coming back from the grave. Linux is open-source. Its vulnerabilities are easier to find. There are many, many Linux hosts, and most are running many, many more Internet-aware applications than the average Windows box.

Additionally, Firefox has had few security vulnerabilities - Someone just mentioned a local attack, which is stupid, but nothing compared to the kind of remote worm fest that IE6 allows. And it has 30% market share, and growing. The amount of virii and spyware written for it should be proportional, if the notion that it's only safe because it's 'niche', but isn't. There are more security vulnerabilities and exploits on IIS than on Apache, even though Apache is used up to four or five times more.

Functionality and layout is indeed a matter of personal preference - I myself really like how IE7 turned out, and think it might be an acceptably secure alternative. But running IE6 is just stupid.

I get a kick out of visiting those 'dangerous' websites with impunity.

Actually that artical you quotes IS horribly biased.

All operating systems require third party software to protect against cracking and viruses, the article tends to not mention how a (good) server has two 'computers' before the actual server farm, namely a very powerfull firewall and a very powerfull anti virus scanner.

Most linux desktop settings are as vulnerable to viruses as windows for the same reason, people do not secure them enough (more secure also means less userfriendly, even windows xp proffesional has settings where you can almost do nothing wrong). It is also true that linux is targeted less by destructive viruses because you get more effect targeting a widely used desktop then one that only has a small percentage of the world market.

And as always it is funny Linux supporters that fail to realise this tend to ignore what companies like novell, mandriva, etc. say. You will notice they all advice the use of a thirdparty anti virus software for computers containing important data.


The only reason a server tends to opt for unix rather then windows is server stability, and this gap is closing fast.

And yet, Windows, both server and desktop, is attacked far, far, disproportionately more than any Linux box could ever hope to be. A quick glance through Microsoft's security bulletins reveals how many 'critical' patches there were this year. Critical vulnerabilities, by Microsoft's standards, seem to be ones that allow remote code execution. Nine last August alone. Microsoft has security vulnerabilities that alow remote code execution EVERY MONTH. And all over the place, too.

Last month (December 2006), Microsoft had 3 critical updates fixing vulnerabilities that could allow remote code execution. It also had 4 important vulnerabilities. Three of these could allow execution of remote code, but were in software not installed by default or required user interaction, as well as one that allowed escalation of privileges by a remote attacker with local, valid login credentials.

In the same period, Ubuntu Linux had 11 security patches, fixing:

1 issue that allowed an attacker to compromise the code of a web-based application using Mono.
1 issue that allowed escalation of privileges, but not to root (To a daemon user).
1 update that corrected a minor, obscure bug introduced by a previous security upgrade.
1 update that allowed a DoS attack using a vulnerability on Ruby.
5 vulnerabilitis that could lead to remote code execution when specially crafted files or streams were read by the user, in GPG, Evince, libgsf and the Xine RealMedia driver.

This is more than Microsoft had, of course, but Microsoft maintains around 10 or 20 different software packages. Ubuntu distributes around two orders of magnitude more, including server packages which are more widely used than Microsoft's software, like Apache (Which had, in 5 years of development, around 25 security vulnerabilities of any kind). Quite simply, the notion that Linux has as many security flaws as Windows is wrong, plain and simple. Since the amount of security flaws is *NOT* determined by the amount of people trying to actually use and attack those security flaws, market share has nothing to do with it. Q.E.D.
This is deep FUD. I've had totally unsecured Linux desktop without a firewall and in a demilitarized zone of my router. I have yet to see a single Linux virus. There is a myriad of them, of course, but they almost all rely on users running malicious code inadvertently - Worms that infect through network exploits and survive in the wild are unheard of. I can link to numerous reports of Windows viruses and worms in the wild; can you post a reference to a single Linux worm that infected more than 1000 computers, and was able to reproduce in the wild?

In reality, lots of consumer distros are dumb - They give users root access by default. I'm obviously not going to vouch for the safety of any old distro, let alone of any old distro that doesn't respect the Unix security paradigm - Linux is secure for a reason, and not giving users and software more privileges than strictly necessary is one big reason. Almost all attacks on Linux that allow remote code execution (And quite probably, all of the ones existing in current software) require the user to open a malicious file. I do believe virus scanning for files can be necessary if you're going to run files from untrusted sources, but worm and trojan protection is like dinosaur-b-gone spray - Useless.

Obviously, this is all assuming you're not running all your software as root.

I've always run Linux without antivirus, and on numerous occasions, without a firewall. Never lost anything to malicious code. Aways-on 'internet security' packages like you have on Windows are bizarrely unnecessary on a system where the only viruses need to be run locally.

*Bzzzzt* Wrong, but thank you for playing.