On Sunday 08 May 2005 17:15, Mike wrote: > I'm very prone to go and poke around there with Firefox - though I wish > F-secure was more explicit about the "exploits" that they're describing - > ...
That's quite typical for these security organizations, not to speak any bad about Windows. It's a matter of fact in the security circles, that almost all problems are due to Windows. But the security companies who make their living on the bugs of Windows (Symantec, Norton and others) simply dno't want to loose their streams of revenue. They don't want the people to switch to other systems. When a problem affects Linux exclusively (there has been some especially with PHP and Apache), they almost trumpet it, clearly stating that it was Linux. When a problem affects a mix of platforms (some Apache versions had problems on Linux and Windows) they mention it to. But when a problem only affects Windows, they seem to suddenly forget to mention which systems are affected, specially in the non technical medias. Thus Microsoft can blatantly lie about the security of their systems and claim that security problems are as much numerous on other platforms. If you go to CNN.com, you'll see alerts like: "A virus spreads on the internet and infects thousands of PCs per hour !" But are these really any PC ?? No obviously not ! These only affects IBM compatible PC (not Macintoshes nor Amiga, nor Amstrad nor whatever) running only on Intel x86 and compatible processor serie, running a version of Windows or MS-DOS. These problems these days typically involve IE, Word documents and Outlook, which only run on Windows. You can read the whole article, you'll typically find no mention of Windows. The question is why is it so ? It's because Microsoft buys ad space in the major medias, incuding CNN. With this scheme, the IT deciders who typically don't read technical articles come to believe that virus and malwares spread regardless of the OS and so the intended effect is reached: they don't think about switching to an alternative platform to enhance security. That's why Microsoft continuously run advertising campaigns for Windows although there is no hope to expand the market share of Windows, because the market is almost saturated. -- Patrick BURNAND <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
