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Comment by aswanson | Hacker News Reader

Another word for closed platform is no virus? So closed windows is more virus proof than open Linux?

the iPad is nothing like windows or Linux for that matter. How would you get virus into the iPad when everything has to be approved.

It's a very different animal.

If Linux had the market share that Windows did, you can bet your last dollar Linux would be as bad off in terms of spyware, virii, etc.

This is absolutely not true. Such a statement is ridiculous, and ignores the historical development of Linux and Windows. Windows was built as a single-user, administrator-by-default system that will run any EXE file without question. Linux was built modelled on UNIX standards: run as unprivileged user, multi-user environments, etc.

Sure, MS is better about Windows Security now. And guess what? That's why there aren't nearly as many virus problems as there used to be (think 7's early days vs XP's early days).

Linux has a strong security model. It already has ~50% market share on servers (maybe more)! Don't ever suggest that my last dollar would be spent poorly if I bet on Linux's security.

Also, the plural of "virus" is "viruses", not "virii".

This seems to be emotion talking not logic.

You are confusing whether the system with the users.

The reason why virus is a menace on the windows platform is because of all the non experts using it.

If you had the same kind of types as my partents there would be absolutely no challenge plastering the os with viruses.

Bullshit. Historically Apache has always had a greater market share than IIS yet far more virueses target IIS. Historically most servers have run UNIX OSes yet most of the malware that targets servers goes for Windows. Some architectures are objectively more secure. Being closed, in fact, closely correlates with being insecure.

If you bet on it, you will lose.

That is the MS PR statement, witch is completely BS. Open source have a lot more people looking at the code and using a proven Unix security model.

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