I don't know if its safer than current versions of Windows 7 intelligently used. It certainly is a lot safer than earlier versions of XP, used as they came out of the box.
One reason is that desktop linux is a small population and so not being targeted. A second is when you do an install, it will obliged you to set up a root account and a lmited user account, and your limited user account will not be able to get at the system files. A typical example of this is with Rev sorry LiveCode - download the new version, try to install it, cannot. Its not executable, and then, it tries to install itself in /opt and you have to be root to do that. A third is that all payload will arrive as being unexecutable, and most of the time marked read-only. One of the things you always have to explain to people when putting in Linux for them is how to change permissions, because if not, one of the standard questions you'll get sooner or later is that someone sent me a word processing file and I cannot edit it. Right, its marked read only. So you contrast that with a situation in which for decades everyone used the internet with administrative prilvileges, all downloaded files arrived market executable. Then we had the saga of Explorer and all its holes, all the Office macros.... But the real question might be this: if you were to set up your windows install to always work as limited user, and if you enable privacy between user accounts, and finally if you use a dedicated account for all financial transactions and only use that account to go to a very small number of known financial sites, and if you have up to date anti virus, are you any more at risk than on Linux? I don't know. I hear of compromised windows installations all the time. Admittedly they are not Windows 7 mostly, though I heard of one of these the other day. They are not set up like that either, they are the standard default set-up. My feeling is that you probably can keep a windows installation safe, if you work at it, and really keep your protection software up to date. Its just a question of what you want to spend your time doing. For what its worth, my own decision years ago was to do what you are suggesting. I do run XP in a VM for the rare occasions when its necessary, but almost never connect to the net with it. I decided that I could probably keep Windows secure if I worked at it, but that life is too short, and I the big difficulty was how I would know I had succeeded. As to one of those risks on one of your links, guest users, well, of course you set up a guest account on any Linux install, and if people want to use your machine you sign them on as guest. You don't allow the guest group to read any of the other user files, even. You can wipe and recreate the guest account as often as you feel the need. You could do this on windows too, but no-one does. Slax is a good live CD distribution. It might also be worth looking at Vector live and Zenwalk live - they will be faster than most live distributions. I would install Debian Stable if doing a proper desktop installation. Once you start using Linux routinely, you will be surprised how little you need Windows. -- View this message in context: http://runtime-revolution.278305.n4.nabble.com/OT-Browsing-the-internet-It-is-safer-from-Linux-tp3020657p3020879.html Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution