On Sunday 07 March 2004 23:15, David Rayne wrote:
> Yes it is safe for the time being. Safe because it is a minority OS and
> the sods that write viruses haven't yet started on it
There are differences in the design that I have been convinced make Linux less
inclinded to pass worms and viruses on.
Minority OS applies to Apple with OS 9 and X but even with 9 I gather the
design was more protected agianst viruses.
Unix in general is made modular, Windows and Windows applications are
deliberately and increasingly intertwined.
The gap between detection of a vulnerability and implementation of the patch
recently has not been the same for different engineering traditions,
communities of use and operating systems.
The number of operating system vulnerabilities detected in the last year is
not equivalent, although if one compares all vulnerabilties reported for
distributions of software and OS for the Linuxes to the vulnerabilies in
Windows and regards the several versions of WIndows as one operating system,
the numbers look closer.
--
Adrian Midgley (Linux desktop)
GP, Exeter
http://www.defoam.net/
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