Why does doing away with wifi make Ubuntu more secure?

[skoggo]

I plan on doing a clean install, and want to immediately lock down all potential security flaws.

It was recommended that I not use wifi, and use a direct connection to my router. I can revert to this setup, but I do not understand what it does to keep my computer from being hacked.

There are other people in the same house, and I do not have the option of shutting off the wifi for everybody. I was planning on creating a guest network only used for my machine which will be directly connected to the router.

By using a direct connection what attacks does this prevent/what are the security benefits?

[CharlesA]

You are still sending data over radio waves. Even if it's encrypted (and unlikely to be broken if you use WPA2 with AES), it's still more likely to be intercepted since capturing wireless traffic is easy.

Whether that makes it more or less secure if up to your definition of security vs convenience.

[Tadaen_Sylvermane]

The absolute only benefit to going pure wired is that an attacker would need a hardline to your router to get into the network. Modern wifi encryption though is pretty intense. I don't consider it a realistic risk factor for the average person. But there's always that one neighbor who gets his jollies by screwing people over.

Between the benefits and risks? Only you can determine if you can live without the wifi in the house. I know I can't. You cut out all wifi and you make it impossible for any tablet / phone / tv streaming stick (firetv, google chromecast, roku). They don't have ethernet ports.