Windows 7, PLEASE tell me its secure.
 

Need to upgrade a laptop.

SO sick of dealing with security issues on XP pro.

Is Windows 7 tight as a drum? Please say yes.

It's Windows (Microsoft).... Need I say more?

I have Windows 7 64, and AVG Free.

My laptop is on 24/7 connected to a 15 megabit fiber line.

I'm not a complete idiot when downloading things from the internet.

I've never had a virus, spyware, etc.



There's a correlation between the level of user and the likelihood of contracting a computer virus. The system is only a small variable in that IMO.

Actually, I'm running Win7 without any virus protection... Have been for a year now. :)

And no, the laptop is not infected...

I can't remember the last time the anti-virus software found anything worse than a cookie. I have some neighbors who have asked me to look at PCs and they always seem to be nfected. OTOH, I bet they never update the software and they are in high school.

Funny, my XP build that ran for 4-5 years was like that, and now I've been running Vista for about 2 years, same story.

My home PC is powered up and connected to the Internet 24x7x365. I do have Trend Micro, but the only thing it ever sees is cookies. I have used bit torrent to download all sorts of stuff. I'm quite active on the net.

I've had no problems.

Lay it out for me. What are the advantages of going Linux?

I have almost enough parts to put together another PC. Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and upgrade my desktop to the top of the line CPU (AMD Phenom II X6 1090), move my 1055 to my wife's PC and then build one more with simply a MB and memory (I have a case, HD, DVD drive, etc).

I have one more copy of Win 7 Pro, but I might put Linux on this. Is it a 64 bit OS? If I were to load server, besides file server, what might I use to for? Mail server? How tough to setup?

After 2 months, W7 is stable as a tank. Doesn't update 'continuously' the way XP used to. No legacy hdwe issues. Much, much faster to load etc.

I use Norton & it does its job painlessly & swiftly. It has flagged some malicious sites but no real attacks.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1288355454.jpg

Thumbs up to W7 here.

Ian

A little old but this article give a good Win7 security overview

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/182917/pros_and_cons_of_windows_7_security.html

There are tons of Linux distros/flavors. Yes 64. If you want to run a mail server etc... look for a precompiled LAMP distro.

Just remember servers on Linux typically don't include a gui although one can be installed easily enough.

You can always load Win 7 and run Linux in a Virtual Machine so you can play around with it, see if you like it, get familiar. And if you decide to go that way you can leave the server installed on the VM and run from there.

Most PC's these days don't see 100% load. So VM's make sense, the PC has all this extra processing power/bandwidth just sitting there. Stick another OS on it and get your monies worth.

I like the VM Ware product but Virtual Box from Sun is free and wil do everything that you need it to do.

Surf the 'net in a sandbox...

JR

Win7 is pretty good and I've not had to download too many patches.

It has (rather rudely) rebooted my machine without my explicitly saying "yes, okay" a couple of times for "urgent" security fixes but they're pretty rare. Still that whole "we know what's best for you" mentality bugs me a little.

A Macbook Pro is my next purchase, without a question. They blow the PCs out of the water.

I'll put it to you this way... The computer forensics community jumped into the 7 boat pretty quickly. They seem to think it is more secure and stable than XP....

I'm one of the most anti-windows guys you're likely to meet, but I'm grudgingly giving Win7 a thumbs up.

Whoa! Say it ain't so!

I can't stand the user interface of Windows 7. Windows explorer is harder to read now (rather, interpret).

I often use Windows, but when I do, I prefer Windows XP.

By "secure" do you mean does it require as many patches as Windows XP? If that's the question then the answer for me would be "no" seems like I'm getting the same out of patches as before. Sixteen in October alone.

As mentioned above, safe would be a nice linux distro.

Linux can be just as insecure as Windows or worse if it's not setup right.

I have windows 7 just useing avg free, and have never had anything wrong with my computer

How's that saying go... When EF Hutton speaks, people listen.

i'd say, listen to this....


aside;
"without a question" eh? :rolleyes:

Well, I will say the Macbook pro is a very nice machine. But it's not w/o fault. Off the cuff I'll say that it handles SD cards less elegantly than most PC notebooks. First, when you put one in (a MB-Pro) it sticks out. ...then, put your macbook back into your travel bag with that SD-card sticking out, and see how things go. Of course you can just pull it out . . . WAIT! . . . did you do the proper software eject? . . and wait?

Stupid. "without a question"

edit: PoP, You can think of me every time you deal with that SD card handling. ;) ...hope your not much of a photo hound.

Just get a Mac. They can't get viruses.

You forgot to make that green.

You were kidding, right?

Yes.

But I get that line constantly from people with Macs. It drives me crazy.

I'm sure some are out there but I've never seen a mac with a virus and i've been surrounded by them for 10 years.

Is it better - Yes, is it Secure - no

There are about 300 new vulnerabilities found each week, those are the ones that are found, so just think, it's better than it was, but get AV and turn on the protection within 7.

(As I write this on my new Macbook Air) :D

Switched the desktop over to W7 six months ago. Still figuring out some thing but all in all like it much better than XP.

Would rather eat dirt than use a Mac. My copilot has one and is always asking to use my Dell to get something done.

The new menu bar was my biggest challenge - especially with 'once-in-a-while' legacy programs. The search box at the bottom has proved useful. Of course, I could link to them from the desktop or pin on the taskbar but I don't want to clutter them too much. As an ex-mid-level Window's power user, W7 suits me very well.

Office 2010 is much, much more of a learning curve for me, but it is proving to be a pretty powerful suite of programs.

Ian

Keep it patched, as well as any other applications you have (Adobe Acrobat, etc...), run Microsoft Security Essentials (free) and MalWareBytes (free) and you're all set...

Macs are becoming more and more vulnerable to virus attacks due to the ever increasing popularity coupled with user's assumption that they are invulnerable. My experiences with macs are that when they do contract some virus or spyware, it's even harder to get rid of than a window PC because there is no fix availible- unlike a windows PC where you can just type your symptoms into google and several hundred other people have the same problem and have figured out how to fix it already.

Exactly which Mac viruses did you find more difficult to get rid of.

The security thru obscurity argument is complete BS.

Prior to OS X there were hundreds of Mac viruses. Apples market share was also smaller. In the 10+ years that OSX has been out no viruses in the wild.

What makes more sense, that the people responsible for the pevious viruses all decided to retire the same day or that OSX is simply too tough a nut for them to crack.

Did you mean to put that in green font? OSX is BSD based with a pile of nasty JRE engines tacked on. I don't think there is anything easier to hack than JRE, or BSD for that matter.

Plenty of sites dedicated to OSX spyware and virus removal. And, yes it's not easy for the average joe to remove this stuff.

MacScan » Macintosh List of Spyware, Keystroke Loggers, Trojan Horses, Backdoors and Malware for Mac OS X

Current threat list

iAntiVirus - Threats for Mac

OSX is like Swiss Cheese, we can't even get a PCI certification for it in the business world.

Funny lists.

You do realize that those are lists of mostly legitimate software?

Many of them commercial apps that you pay for?

The majority of them are physically installed by a human sitting in front of the machine.

They show up as security risks because, well it's nice to be able to detect if your spouse has installed a keylogger on your computer.

Apple Remote Access even made the list. Ohhhhh, scary app.

The Trojans that I recognize from the list tag along with installers from pirated software or other non trusted sources. Why would you expect criminals to provide legitimate products?

Ack. OSX is not BSD.

The kernel is, at the core BSD. XNU is built on BSD, and is a standard POSIX environment kernel. You can view the GNU public license that Apple used for it.