Windows isn't so bad!

[Leviatan]

And not to forget the security holes (discovered years ago)that Microsoft has refused to fix till this day.
In my opinion many admins don't care about bugs and problems with an OS as long as it gets fixed, but what do you get from Microsoft? In the past people who reported bugs got laughed at or told to stop whining or Microsoft denied they're whas any problem at all.
Microsoft didn't take anything serious, nowadays they have to.

[Cojonudo]

Right again.
What I meant is that there are hundreds of exploits for NT (great wingate daemon ), and not many that I know for XP.
But you got it, it´s probably because they are still to be found.

Then, sure any *nix is usually better protected, because to use it you need to know a little more than just install it, so you take care of the protections.

Yes, linux is great for that.

[hogfly]

not many that you know of in XP ? dare I say IE 6 anyone ? if thats not a vulnerability in a DEFAULT install of XP...what is ? how about the Upnp( as souleman said)... and the countless other exploits....they already have enough patches to make SP3....

[Cojonudo]

Well, I always use Opera with my boy-frinds WindowsXP so...

[bello]

i do agree with souleman!
A default install of any OS is not secure (except for OpenBSD).
so, now you know why.

[zigar]

imho...the security of any os is up to the user...my installs of win2k, fully patched and tweaked are a LOT more secure than my play box of linux...because i'm new at linux and don't have a great grasp on everything i need to know...this of course is the big flaw in windows...they've set it up to be so user friendly that literally anyone can use it...(can you say aol..

if you don't have a clue as to what your system is doing...you can't make it secure...it is possible to install windows and never ever know anything about the os...that is not true with *nix...

[Und3ertak3r]

soulman,

With uPnP turned on by default you consider XP a security improvement over NT? Remember we are talking about default installs..

I am not sure if your comment was directed at my previous post.. I did notice a gramatical error.. the intention was.. even though I had all the other patches as well as my own mod and sods, I had inadvertantly left uPnP enabled.. and this gapping hole is enabled by default in a clean install.. so what was I saying.. I was agreeing with ya, but I steped on me tongue, and me gonads were strangled in the fray.. and stuffed up me werds..

When correctly installed XP home is "more" secure than Me/9x , and certainly it only takes a few careless step on the users behalf to open the doors and put out the welcome mat and flashing neon sign.. and do this "by accident"

I also am learning how to setup a linux system. By default the linux distros on a dumb install are fairly solid.. this is why I view this site.. to learn to do it better.. there is no right or wrong.. just this works better against that.. and so on.. ..

if you don't have a clue as to what your system is doing...you can't make it secure...it is possible to install windows and never ever know anything about the os...that is not true with *nix...

So true zigar!!

Deep mate you do need to support your statement better.. I work with M$ swisscheese 90% of the time..


cheers

[mohaughn]

Originally posted here by souleman


Google search for windows exploits 125,000 results
Google search for linux exploits 84,600 reslutls

Ok, good proof

That doesn't prove anything. Just that there are more websites with information about windows security vulnerabilities. Which makes perfect sense given that Windows has the market share by a far margin.

An OS is only as secure as the administrator makes it.

[souleman]

undertaker> I wasn't talking about your post. I was talking about conjonudo's post saying 2k/XP are great improvements on NT.

zigar> Your defalt install of linux is still more secure then your default install of XP. Yeah, your XP is now more secure, because you know how to secure it, but default is a different story. And how many people actually know what they are doing. Besides, if you use something like redcarpet ( http://www.ximian.com ) you can keep your packages updated, which happens a LOT faster on linux then MS.

mohaughn> DBM said that his proof was based on a WWW search. I proved that a www search showed more results for windows then linux. That is all I was saying is that his "proof" of searching the web was BS.

Also, look at the results for linux sometimes. My guess is about 90% of all those exploits are based on packages, not on linux iteself. If I don't want to install lpd on my linux box, I don't have to. If I don't want to install the print spooler in XP, I'm **** out of luck. My point is that linux itself doesn't have many vulnerabilitis at all, but all the packages that come with it are where the problems are. With windows, especially IE6, you can't get rid of it, and it is the biggest flaw in existance right now.

[huntx7]

You wanna find Windows exploits? Haha, that is too easy, just look under AntiOnline's security and find windows exploits. It was that easy. There are many more Windows exploits, Windows is too user friendly. I'm confident Linux is wwwaaayyy better than Windows in exploits. Did you know that Windows puts out around 5 updates a week to help secure their products?
http://windows-sucks.com/ gives some good information.