31 replies to this topic

[PrejudiceSucks]

You know that you don't get viri (?) if you rename your IExplore.exe file?

I've renamed mine and it works like a treat with no viri (?). I do like Mozilla though.

[BeefontheBone]

Viruses is the standard form - dictionary.com, for instance, doesn't list "viri". That bugged me about Darwinia - they decided the enemies should be called virii. yuck.

[Tulac]

A big reason why Linux is more secure than windows is because it is much less popular. and advanced users mostly use it...
Just think which hacker would make a virus for an OS that has 3% of the market, and whose users are experienced and probably know where to expect and how to recognize viruses, if he can make a virus for an OS that 97% of people use and of which many users only know how to turn it on, click iexplore icon and type in porn in google...

[MdaG]

Tulac, on Aug 28 2005, 02:21 PM, said:

A big reason why Linux is more secure than windows is because it is much less popular. and advanced users mostly use it...
Just think which hacker would make a virus for an OS that has 3% of the market, and whose users are experienced and probably know where to expect and how to recognize viruses, if he can make a virus for an OS that 97% of people use and of which many users only know how to turn it on, click iexplore icon and type in porn in google...

There's more to it than that.

• Open code
  
• Less than a fifth of the amount of code that Windows has (XP has more than 40 million lines)
  
• Instead of being an OS that tries to do it all, it's built up of smaller programs that mainly just do a few things, but does em good (easy to maintain).

Unix based OS:es has around 70% of the server market (I think), which should make it a target for hackers. So I'm sure that it's more secure and stable, I think that most viruses are written for the Windows platform because it's easier to infiltrate. But since Windows users generally aren't as apt with computers as users of other OS:es your points are valid too.

[DeathDude]

Yeah the point about percentages does play a role exact same thing we can see in the browser wars you might call it, that's why IE gets all these probs like spyware, worms and all that and why firefox is pretty much secure for the time being, but as percentages go up that's when the game changes.

[Kon-Tiki]

Worst case I've seen, was this girl that was using WinXP and was complaining 'bout popups, saying she 'only installed Google Toolbar and then Stargate Toolbar, then this and that and those installed themselves and took over her comp'

I've yet to meet a Unix user that'd pull such a stunt without knowing it's plain dumb, while there must be a hell of alot more people using Windows that'd do that, get their comp to a computer store to get it fixed, pay themselves silly for it, then do it all again a few months later. My bet of the biggest general error in Windows is that it lays between the chair and the keyboard.

[DeathDude]

Yeah there are those sorts of problems we can see happen with users, but with everything getting so sophisticated and tricky with these scams and such trying to trick users it's understandable, but yeah alls is necessary is to read up and learn, and see other examples when it happened, that's what I did when I first got hit by spyware aways back, now I know a heck of a whole lot more from visiting the security forums and such.

[Kon-Tiki]

Not to mention they shouldn't install things they don't really need

[PrejudiceSucks]

Or better yet, don't bother and get Spybot : Search and Destroy, which tells you immediately if anything is getting changed.

[Kon-Tiki]

I'm not too fond of Spybot, actually. Before I installed it, I didn't get any crash-errors when booting up, saying "Teatimer.exe" crashed, but after I installed it, I did. I removed Spybot and ran AdAware. After that, no more such crashes. I don't trust something called Teatimer.exe that boots up during startup and it makes me think Spybot's hypocritic, installing spyware when installing a spyware scanner. I'm staying with good ol' AdAware. At least that one's reliable and feels more like an old pal than like a security agent that's watching your every move while smuggling stuff in himself.

[Tulac]

Adaware works well for me, while couldn't find anything, adaware found around 30 results, don't know why, but I just get better results with it...

[DeathDude]

Best programs to use spybot, ad-aware and spywaresweeper all good programs to eliminate and prevent spyware, and about teatimer it's supposed to boot up on startup bummer about the crash errors, but no worries it's not installing spyware or anything go to any legit security forum and they'll tell ya that too.

[Abi79]

Tulac, on Aug 29 2005, 03:16 PM, said:

Adaware works well for me, while couldn't find anything, adaware found around 30 results, don't know why, but I just get better results with it...

Because it finds also things that aren't considered dangerous (e.g. something about pshotoshop; paint...)

[Kon-Tiki]

And cookies! Yummy Seriously, cookies're not that bad (but I still have it wipe them all out, just to make sure )

[Tulac]

Abi79, on Aug 29 2005, 02:41 PM, said:

Because it finds also things that aren't considered dangerous (e.g. something about pshotoshop; paint...)

Nope it found actual spyware that Spybot couldn't, let's just say it helped me get rid quite a few of it...