internetnews.com — Microsoft is frequently dinged for having insecure products, with security holes and vulnerabilities. But Symantec, no friend of Microsoft, said in its latest research report that when it comes to widely-used operating systems, Microsoft is doing better overall than its leading commercial competitors.
Mar 22, 2007 View in Crawl 4
tacgnolMar 22, 2007
As much as I dislike M$, I have worked with Windows all my life, and never had any serious virus or spyware problems. Windows XP, with OpenOffice, Firefox and Ad-Aware is all the security and stability I need. Adding a good external firewall is a plus.Unless the pentagon is after you, why would you need more security than that?
serpicolugnutMar 23, 2007
Sorry, it's BS. Symantec is hardly objective in all of this. After all, if people perceive Windows to being less secure than other OSes, they might ditch Windows entirely, leaving Symantec without a possible customer.And this whole " people assume that Mac OS X is more secure. They're wrong. It's just that no one wants to write malware and viruses for an OS if they won't spread, and won't hit many people" is bogus. Malware/virus authors love attention, and being the first (yep - hasn't been done yet boys & girls) to create and release a successful virus on Mac OS X would garner world wide attention. But yet, it hasn't happened yet. Why? Because OS X is more secure! Sure, you can fool someone in to giving the ability to take over a machine, but that isn't the same as hacking it with malware or a virus. Symantec can espouse whatever opnion they want all day. They can provide nice pretty charts to back up their assertions. But at the end of the day, it's Windows machines that are getting owned, not OS X or Linux.People, the proof is in the pudding.
cyberriggerMar 23, 2007
Symantec, makers of Norton AntiVirus, is a $16 billion dollar company.If Windows was truly secure would Symantec be a $16 billion dollar company?
brlittleMar 23, 2007
@fintheman:With all due respect: Blow me.Did you actually _read_ the report? What it says is that Windows is most secure, based solely on how fast it turns around fixes. This is basically a meaningless measure, taken by itself, and as reported, it's twisted completely out of context.So Apple took 66 days, on _average_, to patch flaws, eh? How many were rated critical? Ah...now how many Windows flaws were rated critical?Yeah, now you're cooking with gas there Sherlock.I'll take my Mac with its ONE critical flaw, wait the extra few days for the patch, and still be safer than your PC with its TWELVE critical flaws, over that same period.
twent4Mar 23, 2007
What I find odd is that just a few days ago, Kaspersky, Symantec's competitor, listed VISTA as insecure and unstable... a bit too lazy to look for the link but it was on digg's frontpage. So even tho it seems like the article is talking about XP, wouldn't VISTA be fundamentally better and safer than its predecessor?
fcekuahdMar 23, 2007
This is totally misleading. Look at the number of CRITICAL flaws.
zachblumeMar 23, 2007
Here's my theory. Windows can be as secure, if not better than Linux or apple. The thing is, Linux and apple typically have safe DEFAULT settings. You turn it on, security is pretty much set not to suck (okay, maybe a few things need to be done, but you know what I'm saying. You won't be compromised in less than 3 seconds like a window machine will when connected to the internet). You turn windows on, then install clamwin firewall and spyware terminator, get rid of a bunch of processes, the sucky windows built-in firewall, make sure this is turned on and that is off and on and on and on...Once you get a windows setup perfect though, it IS a thing of beauty. Windows is power. You have to know how to use it.
obkenobiMar 24, 2007
[quote]Not a popular opinion, but I agree. Windows XP with all patches and service packs, firewall and proper anti-virus is stable as the Great Wall of China.[/quote]Unless you're a pirate, you have to buy those applications. The ones that come with XP are practically useless against real threats as shown in tests. So add their cost to XP's, and don't forget that the AV usually comes with a one year license, so you'll have to pay again next year.Ofcourse Symantec would rather have you using Windows and potentially their products rather than OS X or Linux, which don't need Symantec's bloatware to be secure.
Closed AccountMar 30, 2007
I kinda love XP
popapiskaMay 2, 2007
Perfect! I really love such articles.
livesterMay 20, 2007
Wow! Is anyone able to open this link?