Windows as secure as OSX....

[seer]

Suggestions: Firefox Mozilla Opera

I know them all, not sure which one I prefer tho.. I do find myslef starting IE more tho.. It's easier and I'm lazy..

By all means please do.

I doubt that I will find any, I usualy don't go to weird sites.. (Why would anybody anyway, only by accident or searching for cracks I suppose ?)

[mikeymike]

seer wrote:
@mikeymike

@ HopperJF

If I statements that demonstrated ignorance on such a level as you have, I'd expect to get flamed from here to next year

Did I miss something ? You allready responded to him ??

I did, but I responded before I had read the second paragraph.  I felt it needed saying.

Wrt to finding browser vulns, I meant find the vulns yourself and publish :-)

[minator]

If this is the same story a shown on OSNews and Slashdot it's just FUD, they count the vulnerabilities in different ways conveniently missing quite a number of them for Windows, they also didn't count those in IE (which I consider to be part of the OS).

In other words they can't count.

[HopperJF]

seer wrote:
@mikeymike

@ HopperJF

If I statements that demonstrated ignorance on such a level as you have, I'd expect to get flamed from here to next year

Did I miss something ? You allready responded to him ??

He uses Windows, and I made him upset.

[mikeymike]

He uses Windows, and I made him upset.

Congratulations on missing the point completely.

And you're probably the first person ever to say/imply that I'm a Windows advocate  :lol:

[HopperJF]

I feel special  :-)

[Acill]

Getting back to the topic, simply this: If you use Windows and IE sooner or later yo will get a virus or trojan and get hacked or your sysem will get screwed up. I have yet to come accross anything in OSX that even comes close to the scary stuff I see in Windows boxes. I cant remember the last time I got a real virus in any MacOS or AmigaOS system I have. The only ones I do see are from email and are Windows versions.

[Colin_Camper]

Absolutely!

They have addressed some of the issues with default services in XPsp1 but the security model is still weak.
This means that if you are running a browser in NT+ (especially IE) you are gambling with your security.
At home, I'm behind a firewall/router, patched to the hilt, run stinger/adaware every week and only use IE on crappy ASP or M$Java sites.

As for the windows runs on DOS folk - try telling that to the ex digital VMS dudes who developed NT. The last DOS/Windows combi was the dreadful millenium - now who runs that?

[HopperJF]

Acill wrote:
Getting back to the topic, simply this: If you use Windows and IE sooner or later yo will get a virus or trojan and get hacked or your sysem will get screwed up. I have yet to come accross anything in OSX that even comes close to the scary stuff I see in Windows boxes. I cant remember the last time I got a real virus in any MacOS or AmigaOS system I have. The only ones I do see are from email and are Windows versions.

Agreed 100%.
So the simple answer to the subject of this thread, is No.

[irishmike]

This is all interesting.  IMHO, the only reason Windows is exploited more is because it is hated more.  Myself, I have a love/hate relationship with my Windows XP boxen and thinking a little more about it, I always have.  If Windows did not make me money, it would be easy to dismiss it, but the fact remains that it is necessary because big business does not want (or can not afford) an infrastructure change on the magnitude it would take to drop Microsoft.  No company wants to be the first to go against status quo :-)

I am dropping Windows on my home system because I am tired of focusing on vulns and viruses and having to spend money on products that I need to keep my computing environment safe.  I have looked into Linux and I have owned and still own a Macintosh system... the one I currently have is an old 7600 running OS 8.6 (circa mid 1990s).  I was a FreeBSD user for a long time and MacOS X is a very big advancement for Apple!  That doesn't mean it is secure though.

Someone mentioned that BSD is just a kernel... MacOS X (not sure about the current Panther/Tiger) was all FreeBSD with a lot of new utils and a pretty GUI put on top... the utils are indeed what separates "Darwin" from FreeBSD, but you can run most of the same commands at the prompt and it is still FreeBSD under the hood.  That having been said, the same exploits that may be in FreeBSD (not secured) will be present in OSX.

It USED to be that Windows was the only system to have viruses and Macintoshes and *NIX systems could be carriers but not infected (ie:  send an email from your mac to your buddy with a PC and you could infect him if you carried a virus)... Spyware of course is a big problem, but given time, it will be a problem on other platforms too.

As MacOS X gains market, vulns will be found and exploited because everyone wants to unseat the king of the hill, again this is my opinion only :-)

My personal choice... Go with Amiga and specifically get to A1... that will be the platform to watch... and at least for now, I will be free of headaches outside of work.

an aside, The benefit of working for a company is they provide another win box for me to use anyhow, so it is safe to change my home platform.


Anyhow, all platforms have potential to be exploited.

[seer]

I cant remember the last time I got a real virus in any MacOS or AmigaOS system I have. The only ones I do see are from email and are Windows versions.

So the simple answer to the subject of this thread, is No.

That's not what's this is about, it's about no OS is as secure as we need/want it to be.

If you think you are safe from virus or other attacks just because you don't use windows, well, it's your loss..

[minator]

This is all interesting. IMHO, the only reason Windows is exploited more is because it is hated more.

I'd put it the other way around, I'd say those do the exploiting *love* the fact it's so insecure.

As MacOS X gains market, vulns will be found and exploited because everyone wants to unseat the king of the hill, again this is my opinion only

I'd agree more attempts will be made on the more popular systems but that in itself does not mean it is less secure.

I think it is something of a myth that Windows is considered insecure because it has the biggest market share.
Apache has the biggest market share for webservers but does it have as many vulnerabilities as IIS?  No.

Someone mentioned that BSD is just a kernel...

Linux is technically a kernel though most people use the term to refer to the entire OS, BSD is an Operating System (actually a family of them).

MacOS X (not sure about the current Panther/Tiger) was all FreeBSD with a lot of new utils and a pretty GUI put on top... the utils are indeed what separates "Darwin" from FreeBSD, but you can run most of the same commands at the prompt and it is still FreeBSD under the hood. That having been said, the same exploits that may be in FreeBSD (not secured) will be present in OSX.

Not quite...
OS X includes a chunk of FreeBSD in the kernel along with MACH along with a load of stuff from FreeBSD, OpenBSD, GNU etc. on top.

That having been said, the same exploits that may be in FreeBSD (not secured) will be present in OSX.

Assuming the part in question is present and hasn't been changed.

Anyhow, all platforms have potential to be exploited.

That I agree with 100%

[Macca]

This topic again...

Every operating system has it's weaknesses.  At least with Windows XP and other variants of Windows you have the ability to patch it - you can even run a scheduled update - so you can just forget about everything...

The reason why Mac OS / Amiga OS isn't exploited as much is because it's not used as much... I'm also pretty sure I can remember lots of virus's for the Amiga as well...

Now take linux - Red Hat actually makes you pay for the patches - great..

The operating system is only as good as the user - if you take care and patch it / use a firewall then you won't have many problems...  however if you don't take care of it, like everything else, it will be crap...

Normally most problems with operating systems are down to user errors - Bill Gates for making lots of money has become hated... yet when there's a problem with anything it is quickly patched...

And for all of you who say 'well it should have been patched in the first place' even with the best testing it's still possible to miss something - and if you do it's much better to release a patch than try and cover it up...

Sorry for the long post but it seems to be a stupid comparison - like a topic 'is the ST more vunerable than Amiga' etc etc..


Macca.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Colin_Camper wrote:
As for the windows runs on DOS folk - try telling that to the ex digital VMS dudes who developed NT. The last DOS/Windows combi was the dreadful millenium - now who runs that?

I can remember clearly that I ran Sopwith (a very old 8086 game) under Windows NT4

[mikeymike]

Sorry for the long post but it seems to be a stupid comparison - like a topic 'is the ST more vunerable than Amiga' etc etc..

Oh go on, that would be amusing :-)

Apache has the biggest market share for webservers but does it have as many vulnerabilities as IIS? No.

Erm, actually, yes.  Do the search yourself if you don't believe me, but it's a commonly known fact in the security community.  But I think (pretty sure actually :-)) Apache has been around for a bit longer than IIS.