Spit "Unix was chock full of security holes for decades. It's just had more time to close them up."

Of course. Heck, There are exploits and attacks currently out there that are for Linux and Unix systems. The reality is that these systems are as vulnerable as any other system.

Of course, a well maintained system under most of the popular OS's is pretty secure - it's simply a matter of people maintaining the system.

Spit "The problem with Windows isn't Windows the OS. It's Outlook Express and MS deciding that email should be in html format, displayed by IE, and running every type of scripting on the planet. That has become the main target."

Actually MS didn't "decide" that email should be HTML - it simply enabled it. As an interesting side note the default installation of modern Outlook and Outlook Express system keeps email HTML in the most restrictive security zone as defined in IE This means that by default a clean install doesn't do that stuff of late as far as I know.

Of course, the scripting patches closed it for older systems as well.

Spit "Viruses and trojans attached to files is as old as computers and no OS is immune."

I agree entirely - of course under modern systems it is fairly easy to sandbox new files. Under XP it is pretty easy for instance to simply mark your normal account as NOT being an administrator. It's a little bit of a pain when you want to install a program (right click and "Run-As" admin) but it is worth it.

This sort of thing has been available for a long time under Windows (2000, NT and now XP) but few folks take advantage of it.

Jaqui "sorry, but I'm not involved at all in hacking into other people's computers, nor will I ever teach someone how to do so."

Then I'll gently suggest that the problem is a lot harder than you think it is :) I do a fair amount of security work and I will let you know that there isn't one good currently known way to slip a trojaned executable past a good outgoing firewall without tricking the end user in some manner in a manual operation.

Phantast "The writing is on the wall, and one day we will all have to read it, whether we like what it says or not - and what it says is L I N U X"

It's never going to happen. The chance came and went - the train left and Linux wasn't on it. For a little while, Linux had something to offer the common user - stability and security. With the release of OSX, Windows 2000 and then Windows XP all the technical advantages to Linux went away. There is currently not one compelling technical advance in the Linux system - and the seriously broken 2.4 releases coupled with the corruption of hard drives happening under 2.5 have destroyed the idea that Linux is inherently more stable.

Linux is a nice server system for those people who want it - we run Linux servers ourselves for our clients and ran them for our own use for a long time - I myself have been running Linux since .9 era pre-alpha releases. it's cool, and it's cute... but it is never going to take over the world.

Marque "If Linux wasn't free would you still say it's better than windows? Just wondering."

I think it is fairly clear from terms like "winblows" and "M$" that for many people Linux is not about technology, it is about anti MS bias and ideology.

That's fine - but the simple reality is that any technical advantage is long gone.