Hello, I am going to talk about computer viruses. They are the most annoying things ever. They could come in the form of ads, downloads, and websites. But why is Windows targeted? All other software have almost no viruses, but Windows seems to be the targeted one. The reason is the virus protection is bad and most people that use Windows are idiots. On a Windows computer, there are cracks that viruses slip through to get into your computer, and it seems that Windows has more cracks than other computers. Due to many kids using Windows, they try to get free downloads of games like Minecraft. Since those games are popular and many people try to pirate them, the free downloads, or basically free viruses, put a virus on your computer and break it down until it dies. Now, while typing this, I am using a Chromebook, and I have downloaded some stuff, no viruses.  The OS is basically just for Facebook, YouTube, and other things, as well as playing flash games online. And the other OS's are not that powerful (not really counting Mac) and end up getting the almost same results as the Chrome OS. Even though they are a little more powerful, viruses are very rare. This is more a rant on the Windows OS, not viruses. But seriously viruses are annoying.


Yep, I guess that is my rant. Better go back to Clash of Clans.

OmegaVenomous : actually chromebooks has a weakness, your account can get hacked and everything you had on the cloud might get deleted. Other times apps can cause problems, google does check them but they are human not robots.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/pwn2own-2012-google-chrome-browser-sandbox-first-to-fall/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-reasons-chromebook-solve-digital-security-issues/

mastergame : Yea, true, that could possibly happen. My Google account I used has been hacked.  When I was logging on to my Chrome account on my Chromebook, it said it got hacked by someone in the Netherlands. So I changed my password, nothing happened, and I created a new Google account and I was good.

I won't say that Windows is the most secure OS ever, since it does have some problems.

...but maybe it's so easy to get a virus on a windows computer and most viruses are targeted towards Windows as opposed to a chromebook because Windows is the most widely used OS?

Like, if you're making a virus to screw people's computer up, you'd wanna target the OS that most people use. That happens to be Windows and not Mac or Linux or UNIX.

ZeroTails : You make a lot of great points. I recommend Windows for gaming and social media, not really much else. Mac is for photo and video stuff, and Linux is a little of Mac and Linux, with a weird coding thing. But yea, whatever.

Wrong forum.

And Windows OSes are targeted because its the most popular and most widely used OS in the world.
Every OS can be hacked or get a virus.

Vanelan : Woops, you're right. It needs to be in the technology thread. Oh well, it's stuck here now.

All OSes are subject to attack. Windows gets the lion's share because it is the most widely used. Apple OSes have their own issues as well. I would recommend you have an anti virus running at all times.

Oldschool777 : True. Even the free version of McAfee will help.

OmegaVenomous : Quoting something you said: "Now, while typing this, I am using a Chromebook, and I have downloaded some stuff, no viruses.". Let's reflect on that for a bit.

Of course, using a Chromebook makes you immune to viruses... Windows viruses. Not wanting to play the devil's advocate, as I use Linux as well (Chrome OS is a Linux distro, I just can't recall if it's based on top of another distro or if it's built from scratch), but no OS is 100% safe. Of course, Linux has way less chance of being infected by a virus, but that's due to three main points:

1. Lack of market share (Windows has a whopping 90%, which I hope will change in the future as more and more people will get fed up with Windows 10),

2. Windows viruses literally don't work at all on Linux due to binaries, it's like writing a letter in Greek and asking for a Japanese person to read it (I'll get a bit "nerdy" here - suppose you have a virus which deletes your "C:Program Files" in Windows. It won't work on Linux since it has a completely different filesystem from Windows, there's not a "Program Files" in there, and also because the commands written are specific to the Windows kernel, or "infrastructure" if you prefer. Same thing if you write a virus for Linux and try to run it in Windows), and

3. Linux is already, in a certain point-of-view, kid-proof: everything you install from the repositories is tested and safe, and even if you downloaded something which isn't in the repositories, it always asks you your password, so you have complete control of what you're doing. It's just hard to find a program that might actually have a virus, and if someone finds one, they'll just remove it pronto, due to Linux's (and most of its programs') open-source nature.

Then, again, devil's advocate: Linux is not 100% safe, it's just not being targeted as Windows is. Yet I doubt it would succumb to the same problems if it was targeted like that, especially due to reason number 3.

By the way, another quote: "The reason is the virus protection is bad and most people that use Windows are idiots.". I agree with the latter but disagree with the former. There are good Windows anti-viruses out there, I used to use Avast! back in the day, but there are others such as AVG, Norton, BitDefender, Malwarebytes, HitmanPRO, etc., but I just can't recommend Windows Defender. Stock features are generally "biased" IMO.

I also don't really count Mac since I never met one single person using a Mac where I live (these things are expensive as hell, although there's a lot of people who use iPhones here), but modern Macs are based in the same architecture Linux has - UNIX, which also makes it, theoretically, invulnerable to viruses. I said theoretically because, in the past, there was an episode where several Macs got infected with a trojan named Flashback.

But that doesn't mean there aren't anti-viruses for both. I think Mac has Norton, and Linux has ClamAV, which also scans for Windows viruses (in case you need to run something via WINE/PlayOnLinux). It all boils down to preventing your kiddos from downloading pirated Minecraft copies

Either way, I feel your rant, man. That was one of the reasons I got fed up with Microsoft and went to Linux (actually that wasn't even a big one, it was just an annoyance long forgotten after I changed OS).