Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Is GNU/Linux More Secure than Microsoft Windows?

GNU/Linux is considered a more stable and more secure operating system than Microsoft Windows. The belief behind this comes from two schools of thought. The first is that the open source / free software alliance makes the GNU/Linux operating system less of a target for attackers who wish to cause trouble for the commercial enterprise–backed operating system.

The other school of thought states that the stability and security come from the fact that many developers are looking at, probing, and testing the source code that is freely available. With such a large community of developers looking over the code, bugs and other errors are found and fixed more quickly. GNU/Linux opponents have raised the point that one unethical programmer could insert malicious code into the project. However, the number of people who are examining the source code practically ensures that this would be detected almost immediately.

Another reason behind some of the strength of the GNU/Linux operating system is that there is no rush to market. Many software packages need to be released by a certain date in order to meet sales projections. Security experts cringe at this thought since when software is rushed, not enough time is spent fixing vulnerabilities in the code. With GNU/Linux, often hundreds of volunteers are pouring over the source code looking for these vulnerabilities.

Source of Information : McGraw Hill Osborne Media How to Do Everything Ubuntu

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