Story: Microsoft OneCare gets a bashing

Posted by: David Wright (Saturday 14 May 2005, 10:54 AM)

I have no problem with Microsoft entering the anti-virus market and spyware removal, a lot of these get onto the system through user mis-use.

What I have a problem with is MS charging for supporting , fixing and protecting against inherrent problems with their software.

Even with the most secure of systems, the security is only as good as the users knowledge and dilligence, if the user clicks on every link they receive via e-mail, then the system can eventually be compromised. Therefore there is a need for security products to help protect users (even the most experienced user can be distracted and click on a dodgy link).

But if MS are selling services to fix deficiencies in their OS, that smacks of a protection racket or racketeering...

And all of MS's talk about Windows having a lower TCO than Linux is starting to look thin, you pay a couple of hundred Euro's for Windows XP, but that's cheaper than a free download of a Linux distribution, because it is Windows, you don't have to learn anything new - depends on where the user is coming from, experienced Windows user, experienced IT user or new user... The experienced IT user probably won't have many problems as they've worked on a variety of OS's their whole career, new users will have to learn one way or another, the only one that may have real problems adjusting is an experienced Windows users...

...But now they want extra money to correct and protect? How can that have a lower TCO than OOS anti-virus and firewall products that are included in many distributions of Linux? And most distro's have automatic update features which are at least as good as Windows Automatic Update these days.

I run a Linux based perimeter firewall, a mixture of Linux and Windows 2003 servers and a mixture of Linux and Windows XP on the desktop. To be honest, although I have both a Linux and a Windows workstation on my desk, I use the Linux box for 99% of my e-mail and web browsing these days.

For the regular updates, there isn't a lot between the two, they both have automatic downloads, Linux requires root access, so only the administrator has the right to download and install the updates - which can be automated centrally. Windows can do the same, but requires more work. The difference is that Linux defaults to being secure and Windows to being open to abuse, with work, you can make Linux as vulnerable as a default Windows install and Windows almost as secure as a Linux install...

What I find totally unacceptable is Windows habit of wanting to reboot... I install a Linux server, it maybe needs rebooting once a year or so because of major Kernel reworking, Windows requires rebooting after most patches, install software and it often wants to reboot (why, it wasn't replacing the Kernel?) and when some anti-virus software gets updated, that want a reboot as well! For a production server, rebooting every month or so is unacceptable.

From a server point of view, I haven't seen many problems with stability from either Windows or Linux, although the Windows domain controller sometimes stops allowing access to the public shares, but the Linux server runs fine handing out SMB shares...