Judland said:
Interesting. Thanks! I wonder how many "average users" know how to something as simple as you've made this out to be? If it is such a simple thing to do, why are XP users having such issues with virus and spyware vulnerabilities?
If you can restrict access (as effectively as you can do under Linux) then why all the virus and spyware software on the market for Microsoft?
The short answer is that MS, on a default installation, does not have the same security setup as Linux does. A simple thing like I've described in my previous post is not as simple a task for, say, my wife.
She doesn't know the first thing about security.
There is a lot of debate on the virus and spyware issues with MS vs. other OS'es. Some say that the reason that MS has so many spyware and virus issues is because they are the most dominant OS in the world (say like 90% marketshare) which leads to greater damage (and hence, popularity) if one writes viruses/spyware for it. Others say that the OS and Internet Explorer is not very secure. While both of these may be true, the fact is that any installation of the MS OS leaves your computer wide open to attack on the Internet (if it was connected to it). That is, all ports were open and services (like file and printer sharing) were all enabled and susceptable to attack. I believe the reason behind this philosophy is to allow users like my wife to connect to printers etc. on a LAN without any hassle. This philosophy existed before the Internet became such a huge phenomenon. Nowadays, their philosophy is starting to change. For example, installations of Windows Server 2003 are, by default, locked down solid. That is, no ports are open by default. Administrators need to enable each service they want manually. In the early days, many administrators were frustrated because they didn't realize this and couldn't get their application servers running.
I believe that all OS'es are susceptable to attacks from the Internet, including Linux. If you don't believe me, you can directly connect your Linux machine to the internet (bypass your router if you got one) and log in as root, shutdown your firewall, wait a few days without shutting your computer down and see what happens. Check your logs and you will see.
Some also say that Internet Explorer is full of security vulnerabilities. While this may be true, Firefox, last month, had more discovered vulnerabilities than IE. It is also not immune.
Lastly, last time I checked, Firefox has 11% marketshare and IE has 80. If you were a spyware writer, what browser would you target?
