Because Shiny Things Are Fun - The New New Windows v Linux Thread

Originally Posted by tiredofbilkyyaforallican Ahhh, Now it all makes sense... Windoze is not a virus, but a poltergeist !!! Yup that does explain a lot

*looks up from the goat spilling blood on my laptop*....actually it is more like a demon you constantly must appease. You can't uninstall evil, always remember that

Originally Posted by Emerald-Rose *looks up from the goat spilling blood on my laptop*....actually it is more like a demon you constantly must appease. You can't uninstall evil, always remember that

Nope you can't "uninstall" it BUT you can certainly overwrite it with a REAL OS

Originally Posted by Emerald-Rose *looks up from the goat spilling blood on my laptop*....actually it is more like a demon you constantly must appease. You can't uninstall evil, always remember that

What the heck do you do with computers, guys? It is always a scary tale about an innocent user enslaved by an evil operating system and tormented by wicked antivirus software and an army of software bugs. However, it doesn't match my user experience on windows system. What I get is a minor annoyance few times per year and... that's it. Nothing else. No goat sacrifices, no infernal voice coming from system speaker, and don't die when I press "start" button. So... did I miss a critical software update that will turn windows OS into demonic hellspawn? Or is there an another way to turn OS into something like that?

Anyway, jokes aside, windows OS and microsoft don't qualify to be called "evil", so would you kindly stop posting such analogies? You aren't in kindergarten anymore, so you surely should be able to think of a better arguments than that.

Aw now touchy aren't we ?

Originally Posted by SigTerm What the heck do you do with computers, guys? It is always a scary tale about an innocent user enslaved by an evil operating system and tormented by wicked antivirus software and an army of software bugs. However, it doesn't match my user experience on windows system. What I get is a minor annoyance few times per year and... that's it. Nothing else. No goat sacrifices, no infernal voice coming from system speaker, and don't die when I press "start" button. So... did I miss a critical software update that will turn windows OS into demonic hellspawn? Or is there an another way to turn OS into something like that? Anyway, jokes aside, windows OS and microsoft don't qualify to be called "evil", so would you kindly stop posting such analogies? You aren't in kindergarten anymore, so you surely should be able to think of a better arguments than that.

that was a win, and sadly i have to agree.

windows is not that bad. it's just that the user might use it in informal ways.
i always heard of lots of viruses for windows and stuff , but really, i run my windows laptop continuously without an antivirus on (i dont even have one) and have never got one virus. i guess that it's pretty much up to the user to get viruses or not. and sometimes it's even better to use a virtual machine to look at pr0n or to install some new software that promises candy but the internets don't have any reviews about it. seriously.

sometimes it's even better to use a virtual machine to look at pr0n or to install some new software that promises candy but the internets don't have any reviews about it. seriously.

I hope this doesn't come off as condescending/insulting to some people, but somehow I doubt the "average" user knows much about virtualization software, if at all...

By an interesting coincidence, I'm posting this from an Ubuntu 10.04 VM.

Originally Posted by silvyus_06 that was a win, and sadly i have to agree. windows is not that bad. it's just that the user might use it in informal ways. i always heard of lots of viruses for windows and stuff , but really, i run my windows laptop continuously without an antivirus on (i dont even have one) and have never got one virus. i guess that it's pretty much up to the user to get viruses or not. and sometimes it's even better to use a virtual machine to look at pr0n or to install some new software that promises candy but the internets don't have any reviews about it. seriously.

If you don't have anti-virus to scan for viruses, how do you know you don't have one? That's like saying I know I don't have any sort of infection but won't go to the Dr to get tested to make sure.

I do think it is possible for a person to run windows and not get a virus but it is very rare. My brother has XP and uses Seamonkey to browse with. He gets infections from time to time and all he does is check emails and surf youtube or news sites. Short if unplugging the computer from the internet, getting a virus is just bound to happen at some point.

Originally Posted by silvyus_06 that was a win, and sadly i have to agree. windows is not that bad. it's just that the user might use it in informal ways. i always heard of lots of viruses for windows and stuff , but really, i run my windows laptop continuously without an antivirus on (i dont even have one) and have never got one virus. i guess that it's pretty much up to the user to get viruses or not. and sometimes it's even better to use a virtual machine to look at pr0n or to install some new software that promises candy but the internets don't have any reviews about it. seriously.

Yup you do have a virus it is called windows!
Now I'm not saying there is no place for Microsoft products because I know that people do use it ...My wife and I use one of these products too as coasters!

Originally Posted by dalek ... I do think it is possible for a person to run windows and not get a virus but it is very rare. My brother has XP and uses Seamonkey to browse with. He gets infections from time to time and all he does is check emails and surf youtube or news sites. Short if unplugging the computer from the internet, getting a virus is just bound to happen at some point.

I have to disagree. Keep windows and internet/multimedia apps up to date, use a whitelist method to block untrusted active content in the browser (i.e. NoScript), download only widely used und known applications, and only from their official websites. Connect to the internet via a dedicated router (this is standard these days). And keep a good level of mistrust while activating things in the browser. Ad Blocker helps against compromized ad servers.

Apart from that, maybe your brother does things on the internet he doesn't tell you about, or he has another permanently infected device in his network (smartphone, pad?).

Antivirus software lags behind with its signature based approach, and produces false positives and false negatives with heuristics and behavoiur analysis. This is much less secure than software without known holes. I use AV software on windows, but I never notice it.

Originally Posted by cepheus11 I have to disagree. Keep windows and internet/multimedia apps up to date, use a whitelist method to block untrusted active content in the browser (i.e. NoScript), download only widely used und known applications, and only from their official websites. Connect to the internet via a dedicated router (this is standard these days). And keep a good level of mistrust while activating things in the browser. Ad Blocker helps against compromized ad servers. Apart from that, maybe your brother does things on the internet he doesn't tell you about, or he has another permanently infected device in his network (smartphone, pad?). Antivirus software lags behind with its signature based approach, and produces false positives and false negatives with heuristics and behavoiur analysis. This is much less secure than software without known holes. I use AV software on windows, but I never notice it.

My brother has no router, he only has one computer so not sure why he would need a router anyway. He uses Seamonkey for email and his browser, does not use IE tho. He ran Norton for a long time and got several infections but recently switched to AVG. I do know the infections he had were real, not false positives. He never installs anything or clicks on links in emails. This is a habit he got into when he first got the computer. I sort of trained him on what not to do and he follows it sometimes to well. He won't click on a link in a email even if it is a link to youtube. He will if I send it to him tho. He has no network either. Also, I have adblock installed. Did that back when we was all on dial-up. Did I mention he got the most viruses when on dial-up? He has got less while on DSL which is sort of weird.

It seems your assumptions on my brothers setup is inaccurate to say the least. He gets real infections. He runs windows and he got them even when he doesn't click on links in emails or go to places he shouldn't. It's not my brother, its windows.

When I used Windows, I has antivirus software and avoided risky downloads, but did get an occasional virus.

Originally Posted by tiredofbilkyyaforallican yup you do have a virus it is called windows! Now i'm not saying there is no place for microsoft products because i know that people do use it ...my wife and i use one of these products too as coasters!

+1 lol

Or maybe use them in skeet shooting

yes you are right that how the heck do i know i have a virus.

but i guess virusses are supposed to send my .docx and . odt documents + my credentials to some 1337 h@ck3r
i don't save that kind of documents at 13 years yet. and there shuld be some performance loss. i don't know. i migth just be lucky :P

---------- Post added 03-01-11 at 02:28 PM ----------

yes you are right that how the heck do i know i have a virus.

but i guess virusses are supposed to send my .docx and . odt documents + my credentials to some 1337 h@ck3r
i don't save that kind of documents at 13 years yet. and there shuld be some performance loss. i don't know. i migth just be lucky :P

You can scan windows for virus with pccillins online scanner.
And check netstat once in while for any suspicious connections or services that are waiting for
a connection.

it's weird the way windows xp is smaller and snappier on virtual box than ubuntu 10.10 . huh. life. put windows xp on a 12 gig ram intel i7 rig and you'll really scare the sh*t out of it if you have a scsi hdd hahaha

anyways, i guess ubuntu is "bloated" as many say. will try to install debian to see if it gets snappier

(mm windows opens my computer in like 1 second while to open computer from the ubuntu it takes 5 secs )