On Sun, 29 Nov 2009, Larry Seltzer wrote: > Get her Windows 7 and have her run as Standard User. She won't be able > to install anything difficult to remove anymore.
I heard that Win XP was a *lot* more secure than Win 98 I heard that Vista was a *lot* more secure than XP Now I hear that Win 7 is a *lot* more secure than Vista. Well, I'm still installing Linux for her. > If she needs admin privileges then she needs them on Linux too. Maybe > people aren't writing such malware for Linux but they could. Given that, Maybe they aren't? Definitely they aren't. What's the ratio of Win malware to Linux malware? > what could Microsoft do? Well, they could watch while my daughter stops being one of their customers. > One answer could be whitelisting; it's becoming a reasonable solution in > managed networks, but for consumers it's not clear who manages the list. > > Larry Seltzer > Contributing Editor, PC Magazine > [email protected] > http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/ > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of Drsolly > Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 8:12 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [funsec] Family tech support > > Daughter.1 has picked up a nasty, that wants her to pay for an > antivirus, > and keeps nagging at her. She already had Norton, but that doesn't seem > to > want to know. I don't know if she's updated it - probably not. > > I didn't fancy wrestling with the malware to try to remove it, or go > back > to some previous checkpoint (there probably isn't one). > > I offered her two solutions. > > 1) reinstall XP. She doesn't have the CDs (I don't think they came with > the computer). I suspect you can't buy XP now. Vista will cost her about > a > hundred pounds, and then she'll need to buy a new word processor, I'd > guess. Probably another hundred or two. > > I suspect that a new laptop would be cheaper. I remember when we used to > > wonder if a virus could actually destroy the hardware. Well, you don't > need to when it's cheaper to buy a new computer than to get rid of the > virus. > > 2) I install Linux. Zero cost, and she most likely won't ever see > another > malware. > > > > It's a no-brainer, really. > > > Do the folks at MS realise what this is doing to them? > > _______________________________________________ > Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. > https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec > Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list. > _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
