Vista BEST!

[dburnett77]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141763-c,vistalonghorn/article.html

...
Windows Vista was hit by significantly fewer publicly disclosed security flaws in its first year than Windows XP and open source rivals in their first years, according to a report from Microsoft.
...

seems there preping for release of the much needed patches.

And, although true this has been the talk all along, anyone visiting support forums knows different.

On patterns, anticipate bloated weighty beasts on the first two service code releases. Then, an offering for pay support...

Been my observation...

[gn2]

Much depends on the quality and relevance of the statistics.

I've seen people argue that Linux as an operating system has all manner of security issues then quote statistics that concern all the many applications that run on Linux.
For accurate comparison you would have to add all the issues affecting every application that can run on Vista to the total.

You can prove anything with statistics.
80% of all statistics are made up.

[fatality_uk]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,141763-c,vistalonghorn/article.html

...
Windows Vista was hit by significantly fewer publicly disclosed security flaws in its first year than Windows XP and open source rivals in their first years, according to a report from Microsoft.
...

seems there preping for release of the much needed patches.

And, although true this has been the talk all along, anyone visiting support forums knows different.

On patterns, anticipate bloated weighty beasts on the first two service code releases. Then, an offering for pay support...

Been my observation...

You should read what the headline says again

Windows Vista was hit by significantly fewer publicly disclosed security flaws in its first year than Windows XP and open source rivals were, the software giant says.

They may well have 1,000 more security bugs but because of the nature of FOSS, these can usually be found and eliminated within days, where as MS users usually have to wait, 6 months+ for each SP!

[fatality_uk]

80% of all statistics are made up.

I think you will find gn2 that the study showed it was 85.3% of all statistics are made up :)

[Whiffle]

Not to mention, every single bug found for linux is hung up for everyone to see, not so much with vista.

[gn2]

I think you will find gn2 that the study showed it was 85.3% of all statistics are made up :)

Your study may claim that 85.3% of statistics were made up, however another study showed that 92.1% of aliens visiting California from outer space firmly believe that Vista is a genuine improvement on Xp.

[alwiap]

Your study may claim that 85.3% of statistics were made up, however another study showed that 92.1% of aliens visiting California from outer space firmly believe that Vista is a genuine improvement on Xp.

good point :)

[fatality_uk]

Your study may claim that 85.3% of statistics were made up, however another study showed that 92.1% of aliens visiting California from outer space firmly believe that Vista is a genuine improvement on Xp.

:lolflag:

I can actually believe that one ;)

[stmiller]

"Windows Vista was hit by significantly fewer publicly disclosed security flaws in its first year than Windows XP and open source rivals in their first years, according to a report from Microsoft."

:popcorn:

[seanc7]

Key point, "According to Microsoft".

With all the FUD they're throwing around about Linux what would make any objective thinking person believe that without doing a little digging.

But of course it very difficult to get truly accurate numbers on Windows since the only bugs you usually know about are the ones they disclose.

[AnonCat]

Until Windows XP/Vista stops being a petri-dish that nourishes every piece of malware ever conceived, I'll keep using Linux. At some point in the future Microsoft should just forget about backwards compatibility and plunge into a completely original file system design that's more secure. Of course, to be honest, it doesn't really bother me that security is one of the reasons people migrate to Linux from Windows since I'd like to see the death of proprietary operating systems anyway.

[zmjjmz]

by significantly fewer publicly disclosed

That's where the problem is.

[alxlabs]

As far as I know there were about dozen viruses for *nix systems for past 20 years most of them require you to work under root normally otherwise they cannot spread themselves. Count viruses found for win platform past year and compare this number to 10-20 viruses/malware found so far for Linux and predecessors since term "computer virus" was introduced

[dhysk]

Like you I am an anti windows kinda guy. However Vista, while new, has tightened up security pritty well and has gone along way in disabling the 'auto' enable issue for the most part. Second if Linux OSes where as big as windows guess what. Linux would have more viruses!! I love Linux but i don't have any qualms about Linux being more secure. Its not more secure just less targeted. Face it we enjoy our security because our rich neighbor attracts all the robbers. Same reason Mac OS is more secure than Windows as well.

[alxlabs]

Like you I am an anti windows kinda guy. However Vista, while new, has tightened up security pritty well and has gone along way in disabling the 'auto' enable issue for the most part. Second if Linux OSes where as big as windows guess what. Linux would have more viruses!! I love Linux but i don't have any qualms about Linux being more secure. Its not more secure just less targeted. Face it we enjoy our security because our rich neighbor attracts all the robbers. Same reason Mac OS is more secure than Windows as well.

Linux is more secure because of the way things implemented. Most important part is that you do not exchange binaries when you want to distribute Linux program. In simple words you almost never download executable binaries from internet in order to get any s/w for Linux, however this is the only way you can distribute windows s/w. Vista is more secure? Heh, there is a joke in russian - don't make my slippers laugh. Just go to any antivirus s/w company website and check antiviruses and antyspyware etc products for Vista. There are more antiviruses for Vista than viruses ever found for *nix systems. Of course, this is because Vista is more secure than Linux. Win security issues will never be fixed till you have to download binary executables from internet in order to install any s/w.
BTW Entire antivirus industry grew up around MS problems with the security starting from MSDOS. I won't take seriously any statement from MS regarding security of their products unless proven by absence of viruses which is not the case with Vista already.

[hyper_ch]

Second if Linux OSes where as big as windows guess what. Linux would have more viruses!!

You're wrong on that. If you go by the number of installation than apache webserver should be attacked a lot more often than IIS... however that is not the case.

Why?

Because once you gain access to IIS you can control the whole machine. It's a zombie then...

If you gain access to apache... well, then you can just control the webserver and the content it administers...

Linux is very different in its built compared to windoze. If you find a weakness in any Windoze program you are very likely to gain admin privileges... on linux however the best you can hope for is to gain access to a process and the files it manages...

Just comparing numbers doesn't help ;)

[angryfirelord]

The problem with Windows up to XP is that most users who get a computer run as Administrator. Running as a limited account would probably stop a lot of these threats. Granted, there flaws that would allow an attacker to escalate to an Administrator, but similar vulnerabilities exist for Linux as well.

[alxlabs]

The problem with Windows up to XP is that most users who get a computer run as Administrator. Running as a limited account would probably stop a lot of these threats. Granted, there flaws that would allow an attacker to escalate to an Administrator, but similar vulnerabilities exist for Linux as well.

I would agree and not and the same time. On my opinion biggest issues with windows are:

1. Everything is distributed as executable binaries, there is no other way.
2. Registry. Any program has an access to it and may alter the way other programs work or system boots.

And only then it comes to user policy. Almost everyone works under administrator privileges because you need them to install many of the s/w products. Same to Linux, you need to be root for many things but you can "sudo" which is way easier than logging in as administrator, installing s/w then switching back to regular user.

[dhysk]

alixlabs

I never said windows vista is more secure than linux only more secure than xp allbeit not by much.

hyper

I wasnt just playing a pure number game. Just said more of the big bisnesses use windows apose to linux, and more companies that have unexperianecd admins also use wondows more often. At either rate all systems are prone to buffer overuns that allow a vaired amount of penetration on the system. Most of these have been developed for windows like the lsass; at anyrate moste of these are more dependent on the programs your running than the OS you are running. I have had more sucess with Linux in these cases, granted they are home systems not servers, but where thier is a will there is always a way.

All that being said, i am a newb so take it for what its worth, linux is set up in a way that makes it harder to burrow threw and seams to have less holes to plug up than windows.

[hyper_ch]

and the point is?

[cprofitt]

You're wrong on that. If you go by the number of installation than apache webserver should be attacked a lot more often than IIS... however that is not the case.

Why?

Because once you gain access to IIS you can control the whole machine. It's a zombie then...

If you gain access to apache... well, then you can just control the webserver and the content it administers...

Linux is very different in its built compared to windoze. If you find a weakness in any Windoze program you are very likely to gain admin privileges... on linux however the best you can hope for is to gain access to a process and the files it manages...

Just comparing numbers doesn't help ;)

Really?

http://insecure.org/sploits_linux.html

http://secunia.com/graph/?type=imp&period=all&prod=16251

I think it is safe to say that all OSes have issues. All of them.

[gn2]

http://insecure.org/sploits_linux.html

Ancient history.

http://secunia.com/graph/?type=imp&period=all&prod=1625


Misleading.
Secunia lump all the apps in the Ubuntu repos in with the OS.
Only 39 advisories on over 20,000 packages isn't too shabby.

Their stats for MS OS's don't include programs that will run on them.

5% of Vista advisories remain unpatched.
http://secunia.com/product/13223/?task=statistics
15% of Xp Home advisories remain unpatched.
http://secunia.com/product/16/?task=statistics
Xp Home has had 184 secunia advisories.
That's just the OS itself, excluding the apps that run on it.

That's just the known MS security issues....

In essence I agree that no OS or software is without it's faults, but there's a lot of mis-information about.