Well now this should be for some good reading before bed I just caught this article and I have to say AHAHAHA. Microsoft gave it's 6 month report about how well vista did in the first 6 months of going on the market. So far Vista has had 4 patches to fix some high and medium end vulnerabilities that came out, although a few weeks ago I remember an article saying one guy found 10 exploits himself, but no patch has been made for it yet. Of course when they compared vista to Windows XP they mention that Windows XP had some bad exploit, which include IE browser exploits.

Of course the big shocker windows XP had 36 vulnerabilities in which 23 were High end vulnerabilities and the rest were either small or medium, but like Microsoft they pointed out that Vista had a better 6 months then XP did, but least we forget over the long run XP had some pretty nasty ones come out especially the ANI exploit that I posted back in may I believe. But now for the fun part and that is Microsoft hate for Open Source Operating system Linux and all it's open sourceness (thats not a word but still sounds cool); Although they compared Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 against vista the numbers don't lie, well maybe but Red Hat 4 had 129 bugs, 40 rated as High end vulnerabilities. After the first 6 months they had fixed 281 bugs in which 86 were High end vulnerabilities.

So as I am typing this I am talking to our resident Linux user truefusion and he was like OMG and other good choice words, but he will explain that in his post . But like I mentioned early after the first six months of XP, it was open season on the OS and so the question I will say is how bad Vista will be over the coming years, don't forget Windows XP has been running for almost 6 years now and so just give it time and some good stuff will be found.


Source

Here

This post has been edited by Saint_Michael: Jun 22 2007, 08:56 PM

Although i don't use Redhat, i still vouch for Linux's security. You can't bring down all distributions out there by comparing it to one. Each make their own adjustments to the open-source programs and Linux kernel. However, what i find interesting is that they compared Vista with an already out-of-date version of Redhat Enterprise Linux: version 4. They should play fair by comparing it with the current version: version 5. But i would like to emphasize on what is mentioned in this topic on just how much faster the support for Linux is; that is, on how much faster the Linux-based companies are at fixing a problem. During a six month period, out of all the vulnerabilities that were needed to be fixed, Redhat managed to fix more than Microsoft, and there is no mention of Redhat missing any:
But indeed, Microsoft should be given some credit on Vista's security compared to XP. They're doing better with Vista for however long it may be.

More secure... HA thats funny I've been running Linux for about 1 year and a half on my computer, guess how many anti-viruses or spyware removers I have, none, On a clean installed windows copy the first thing I would automatically have to find anti-virus, spyware removal and I firewall, If you call secure having to watch over your shoulder every 2 seconds then I'm sorry for you. It's a shame they are trying to claim this but the sad thing is most people will belive them as they have little knowledge of what Linux is, let them have their fun I'll stick to Linux, the smart thing to do.

This post has been edited by el_mafu: Jun 22 2007, 10:35 PM

yes, I agree with el mafu, linux is much more secure than Vista, even though i have vista installed, I still regret not installing ubuntu linux first. Anyhoo i have used linux, and if you're on a network you should install AV just in case

TBH I think you have no clue what your talking about. I have windows vista, and I love it. I have not had 1 virus, or anything (trust me, i download A LOT) Expecially from non-secure sites. I have not had ANY problems yet, so idk what your talking about, its just what you choose to think .

I guess, Windows will always rock for gamers and in-experienced users who experement a lot with their PC and yet expect it to run smoothly :-)

For advanced users, Linux will excel without a doubt because of its vast options for configuration and customization.

Its all about business for Microsoft.

There are two ways to look at this: Windows is the most popular OS, therefore the huge majority of viruses are written for it, so it isn't Microsoft's fault. Of course, the opposing argument is "Well, they shouldn't have the bugs there to be exploited by viruses in the first place!" Personally, I think Microsoft need to be quicker at fixing the bugs that are reported to them. As truefusion said, the Linux community and distribution managers fix bugs a lot quicker than Microsoft do.

You can safely run a Linux box with no firewall, no anti-virus or anything like that, and you will not receive a virus or any spyware on your PC. After about 20 minutes leaving an unprotected Vista box on, or about 10 minutes for XP, your PC will be virtually unusable! That even doesn't include using the PC in that time. If you were surfing around and downloading then you would have no chance at all. Only routers with in-built firewalls or those which don't have automatic port forwarding set up seem to be protecting most people - and why many claim Windows has become more secure. It hasn't - people just use more protection.

Interesting that you bring that up rvalkass, I do have more protection on my laptop then I have ever have on any system, of course some people are not gullible enough to click those funky emails and stuff a lot more. But what gets me though is that when I read articles talking about how these security research firms are visiting 400,500 tagged sites, they don't even list them on any site or add a website feature within the anti-virus program to prevent people from going to these plagued sites or at least let us know not to go them as well.

Of course with that being said, I plan to have a whole bunch of software on a thumb drives so before I connect my new computer to the net, I have it better protected then I usually do. Of course if no one is aware of this Microsoft does there patches every Tuesday once a month, I caught this when I was reporting on the Ani exploit awhile back. Which tells me two things Microsoft while patch it's Operating systems in groups of exploits rather individually and two they make sure what ever patches they do come out don't lead into anything else.

Yeah you oculd say I am somewhat defending Microsoft on that little part, but money says linux distro's do the same thing so they don't get caught by surprise with some major flaw in it's programming.