So what happens when....

[voodoonirvana]

So what do you expect will happen when Linux starts to catch on more in the home and office? Will it gradually become more insecure and unstable with more users? Will more viruses be created? More worms? Will it eventually be as bad as *******?

[Johnsie]

I'd say so... There will always be people out there who want to exploit computers.I don't really think linux has been tested to the limit like windows has yet.

[fritz_monroe]

Obviously this is a hypothetical question. While I think that Linux will end up with a much bigger share than it has now, I don't think that it will ever be used by as many people as Windows.

But my thoughts are that the folks that create spyware, viruses and worms will target Linux far more than now. However I don't think it will ever be as bad as it is with Windows. Ignoring the way Linux and Windows handle permissions and access to files, one of the big reasons is philosophical. The people targeting Windows are trying to take down the giant. It's a huge feather in their cap to be able to take down the huge evil corporation. What fun is it to attack the little guy that builds this software in their spare time? There's a certain amount of bragging rights that go with an attack on MicroSoft.

Just my $.02

[aysiu]

So what do you expect will happen when Linux starts to catch on more in the home and office? Will it gradually become more insecure and unstable with more users? Will more viruses be created? More worms? Will it eventually be as bad as *******?

Yes, if Linux desktops are 90% of the market, then it will be as bad as Windows.

Someone will create "cool" add-ins for Firefox that, when installed, corrupt your /home directory. Someone else will create a "cool" .deb that, when double-clicked, installs a rootkit on your Linux installation.

Bigger market share => more dumb users and more malicious programmers

Malicious programmers + dumb users = proliferation of malware.

[Polygon]

but at least for the actually intelligent users that that use their computers, we will have nothing to worry about. This is hardly the case in windows.

[23meg]

Someone will create "cool" add-ins for Firefox that, when installed, corrupt your /home directory. Someone else will create a "cool" .deb that, when double-clicked, installs a rootkit on your Linux installation.

But the peer review aspect of open source and the communal way of doing things lessens the risk. How those can be carried over to an era where Linux-based desktops are common can be the topic for another discussion though.

The accustomed way of installing a Firefox extension, for example, is to go to addons.mozilla.org and pick it, where it's reviewed to be malware free. Same goes official centralized distro repositories, and even community operated resources (such as http://getdeb.org or well known third party repos) are more or less guaranteed to be safe; not technically, but due to the fact that the "help your neighbor" aspect of FOSS brings with it good intentions mostly.

There's no evil empire whose flaws have to be exposed with dirty exploits; if you want to make a bug known, you submit a bug report or a patch, and help the system get better. Try that with a proprietary OS.

[aysiu]

You're assuming people would stick with addons.mozilla.org or getdeb.org.

My guess is that people would go anywhere, not thinking about where the .deb or Firefox extension came from. Who's to say a .deb or extension has to be open source?

[23meg]

Both Firefox and apt warn you if you want to install from an unauthenticated source. Sure, there will always be baits for the uninformed who will ignore the warnings and go ahead, but I think there won't be as many as there are for proprietary operating systems, for the reasons I stated above.

It's also safe to assume typical non-technical users will need few things that aren't in the official repositories or addons.mozilla.org, which comes bookmarked in Firefox, whereas they definitely need and go all over the web to look for codecs, popup blockers, cracks to make commercial / shareware software effectively free, etc. in Windows, for example, and while doing those an uninformed user can catch malware very easily.

[IYY]

Linux will always be more secure than Windows, and stability will only increase with time.

However, as we get more users, there will be more exploits and users will have to be smarter about what they install. If you stick to the repositories, you should be safe, though.

[loell]

speaking of insecure debs , is there any way for the community to validate if debs have an embeded malware? can ubuntuforums designate some kind of trust , or how do i put it, ie( he is a seasoned community packager, and he can be trusted)?