The Biggest Linux Myth

Today I talk about the biggest Linux myth: privacy and security.
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==== Special Thanks to Our Patrons! ====
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==== Time Stamps ====
0:00 Intro
1:05 Linux Does Not Equal Private
4:46 Linux is more Secure? No.
7:11 What You Should Do
8:09 Let Us Talk Privacy
10:37 The Internet is the Problem
12:32 Privacy and Security Require Effort
13:07 Wrapping Up
#privacy #linux #thelinuxcast

[@TheLinuxCast]

Like Linux content? Follow me on Mastodon! fosstodon.org/@thelinuxcast

[@nickr2436]

I took a Linux class a while back and my professor who used it her whole career mentioned the same thing. it's a different file system structure and how it handles permissions, but it can still get hacked into if the user isn't being careful. I'm glad you kept it real unlike many other youtubers.

[@bobbyfried7478]

yes exactly! i'm glad he isn't just another Linux fanboi..so many Linux content creators are not completely honest when catering to new users which just confuses new users we need a little more open and frank talk about Linux.

[@spicynoodle7419]

Then continue running your windows signed in as the ADMINISTRATOR user and turn off the permission popup. If any system can be hacked and the user's skill is the only thing that matters go ahead. It's easy to have these empty, "moderate" takes. Linux is objectively better, even for unskilled users. If I set up an immutable distro or automatic BTRFS snapshotting their system will never suffer from malware unless it's some ultra duper hardcore CIA malware.

[@donaldmickunas8552]

Never? Perhaps less likely. Ignorance and stupidity abound these days.

[@flaminbutt]

@@spicynoodle7419are you really comparing running windows as an admin with running Linux as a non-root/sudo user? How much damage can the user do if they’re put in the sudoers file? Or if they’re able to log as root?

[@ghosthunter0950]

This should be common sense though. There is no bullet proof software

[@repairstudio4940]

I think it's the control for most of us. Wanna remove Edge? Windows 💻 👎🏻 Wanna remove /etc or the bootloader? Linux 💻 👍🏻

[@donaldmickunas8552]

You’re right if by “us” you are referring to the more nerdy types. As I see it, our numbers are getting smaller. I’m seeing more users with the typical attitude that computers should be bulletproof machines which are easy to use like an appliance…no real understanding necessary. These folks aren’t as focused on control but on convenience and ease of use.

[@donaldmickunas8552]

@@-Engineering01- No argument there. I was talking as one computer nerd to another. I was describing the situation as I saw it. No judgement intended. For me, control is more of an issue which makes me more willing to dig deeper into the nuts and bolts of Linux. Your engineering side might lead you to take some things apart to see how they work. Cool but not my thing. There are countless varieties of nerdy. You do you. I’m doing me. Have fun!

[@runeheadah]

​@@-Engineering01-Exactly! Nobody _needs_ to understand that your banking info could be stolen from a vulnerable computer in order to use that computer! Nobody _needs_ to understand that the proprietary software that they depend on for a living could be shut down by the maker at any moment! Just like how nobody _needs_ to understand that the new mandated remote killswitches for engines could be hacked and triggered while you're driving at 75mph down the highway in order to drive their cars! Ignorance is bliss!

[@runeheadah]

@@-Engineering01- That's right! Your safety is NOT your responsibility! Pass the buck! Let them deal with the important matters, you have other things to do! It's either the typical lack of critical thinking ability which is so common these days or you're deliberately avoiding my point of how stupid it is for people to choose convenience over understanding.

[@donaldmickunas8552]

@@runeheadah Indeed until one’s ignorance costs them dearly.

[@Krazy0]

bruh simple answer: linux it self is safe, the things you install are not always.

[@xard64]

Your privacy gets eroded very fast once you open a browser unless you are very technically proficient about what data goes in and out from your browser. The problem with Windows is that Microsoft has practically brought browser level of privacy directly to operating system itself so you do not have to even open a browser anymore to be subjected to same kind of tracking and that is a huge issue.

[@ytfeelslikenorthkorea]

my fav kernel vulnerability was in 2.2.* era with lpr? if I remember correctly? A friend hacked into my server by asking two questions: which version of kernel you have? did you build it yourself? no... up.s... what's going on here? :) A system hacked by stack overflow through a bloody printer queueing that was not even in use (again, it was a simple web server, but installed vanilla). So yeah, as we were saying for decades - server is as full of holes as the sysadmin's brain.

[@eekee6034]

That's a great saying! ... It's a good job I don't run a server any more... XD though if I did, it would be OpenBSD for its devotion to security and its relatively large, audited system.

[@RealBLAlley]

Now I'm questioning whether my switch to Linux will actually include regular back massages.

[@VektrumSimulacrum]

The one thing about linux as far as being more "secure" I'm less worried about something getting auto installed/run from the internet. Both my sister and my mum's devices have had that happened either from loading a webpage with a bunch of banners or accidentally clicking on a facebook ad. Sometimes having to do sudo (insert command) before something gets installed is annoying, but I appreciate it for what it is. As for everything else- I never had a facebook account and I won't even click on links in emails from my own family unless they talked to me on the phone about sending me whatever it is first.

[@Xaito]

I've seen 2 out of 4 PCs at my work place getting wannacry back when it was making it's rounds. I was spared because I've used an adblocker. We found out the attack vector for the infected PCs was likely a malicious banner add.

[@STONE69_]

The biggest problem is easy to guess passwords, they get the password then port over to a persons PC. Passwords should be no less than 15 characters, symbols, numbers, capitols, and don't ever use real words, phrase's etc

[@Xaito]

@@STONE69_ How's that's supposed to work? The average PC is at least behind a router firewall so you can't even establish a connection in the first place. You'd need to go out of your way to enable some kind of RDP, VNC or SSH daemon and port forward it in order to be vulnerable to some kind of password guessing shenanigans. And if you do that, then a password probably isn't the best choice in the first place. Go with an SSH key.

[@classicrockonly]

I spy an Elecom HUGE in the background

[@hebedite4865]

I had a digital illustration professor once who worked with film studios and music production companies and one of the many things about that class i will always remember is him asking us "how does one prevent your work from being leaked and potentially ruining your relationship with this huge company?", and his answer was that he had 2 separate computers, one for his daily browsing, emails, grading, etc. and his work computer which never, even for a moment, connects to the internet, because you can't really hack into a database or server you accidentally (or purposefully) found online if the machine simply has no hardware to even access the internet. I always kept that with me, so i wholeheartedly agree with you on this, you can't be completely "safe" from corporations hungry to sell all your habits and personal data unless you don't ever, and have never, used the internet in any capacity.

[@sophieedel6324]

An air-gapped computer.

[@STONE69_]

What we need is an internet kill switch, turn it off when not needed. Especially people that use Windblows and mac.

[@aceiowmydoraph]

When I am in Windows I mostly don't update the system but when I bootup linux and go to terminal the first thing I do is use my alias pakupg which checks updates and prompts what I can update. I always liked the linux update system. This alone makes my Linux at least a bit more secure than Windows. So yeah I proudly can say my linux is more secure than Windows. About telemetry, yeah I do let my debian collect the data even though if I remember correctly when you install debian select it as no . I would rather mostly enable telemetry for an open source project if it can improve from my data than giving it to any proprietary project.

[@eekee6034]

Logical. :) I'm the opposite. My Windows auto-updates, but when I used Linux I never let it update because it could bring change when my health wasn't good enough to deal with it. A bit paranoid, perhaps, but a habit I developed in the 00s.

[@karishaffer]

Hey Mat thanks for the great content I got my degree in computer's in 97 telling my age and just started using linux only a year ago and haven't looked back because of people like you helping I can program I have been using lua and love2d just having fun Thanks

[@RealBLAlley]

It's like buying a car with airbags and tinted windows. If you drive like a fool you'll still crash, although the severity _might_ be reduced. If you roll down the windows you're just as visible and vulnerable to hurled milkshakes.

[@DV-ml4fm]

I don't use snaps, flatpack, ppa or others to avoid malware.

[@socialistmovementsandpolit6056]

Hey....quick question. I noticed in the back you have a scarlett solo....what do you do for linux drivers for that piece of hardware? Hope it doesn't glitch, one reason I don't like windows is because windows makes it hard to correct sound distortion when a driver gets out of whack. My Dad has one and the Scarlett was the main cause. I had to uninstall after trial and error. If it was Linux I could just run a command in a terminal and restart while flushing out the problem. Linux makes it easier to fix things if you have basic computer literacy.

[@bobpeters61]

Microsoft no longer respects your personal property rights to your hardware.

[@zoltan1953]

I really like the opening of this video. I like how you're upfront about Linux itself not necessarily being private or secure. People love to rely on their hardware and software for privacy and security, and will blame their hardware and software if their privacy is compromised. I've been focusing on privacy for years now, and everyone who knows anything at all about maintaing privacy and digital security agrees that privacy is about your behavior and your habits above all else. People don't realize that you can use Google Chrome on Windows and still be reasonably private and secure. Using Firefox on Linux, using silly "hacker" distros like Kali, and even using Tor Browser on Tails, will not grant you some magical cloak of impenetrable privacy and security.

[@TheRealFrankWizza]

Running an open source OS without telemetry that is less likely to be targeted my malicious actors is not fully secure, but it is absolutely "more secure". Even the Microsoft support scammers will leave your computer alone after granting them remote access. They can't run netstat to show you the foreign ip addresses (hackers) connected to your machine, and install securities to remove the hackers, while syskeying your machine. It totally breaks their script.

[@gimcrack555]

I was drawn to Linux. Because I literally hated Windows. I switch just to get away from Windows. I switch; 5 days I got comfortable using Linux and stuck with it. 20+ years and still using Linux. Windows XP was my last OS I touch by Windows. I made my switch July 15, 2003 and never looked back.

[@chomskyan4life]

Wait... Ubuntu still puts ads in the terminal? I've been using Ubuntu for the last four years, mainly because I'm in graduate school and don't have the time to fuck around with my OS right now, and I have never seen any ads in the terminal!

[@jimmyking92]

The fact that the vast majority of malware is designed for Windows systems, and also that in Linux you have to enter sudo password to do something that can potentially break the system (not simply by login with an administrator account) makes Linux many times more secure.

[@Destide]

So should I install this Bonzi buddy flatpak or not?

[@F_Around_and_find_out]

Unless you can connect to the internet and remain invisible out there, kinda like Tyranid's Shadow in the Warp, never download anything directly, and literally just use a 2nd pc to reach out to the world, your system is always vulnerable.

[@twiggy749]

There is a main advantage (not always true, but generally is) of open source software over proprietary sw. When an individual decides to create an open source program, this sw is part of him and normally this person claims attribution on it. Open source is a gallery for developers, so if the sw has a bug this person tries to fix it asap, also this kind of sw is normally focused in performance, so the overall sw quality is better. On the other hand closed source software depends on the commitment of the company for it. If the sw is important for the company it will put resources on the sw if it can, otherwise the result are the frankensteins we commonly see with bugs and other issues we see in proprietary sw.

[@rursus8354]

Thank you for allowing me to visit all my weirdo sites! I'm soon going to visit Microsoft, and if that isn't weird, what is?

[@keerthivarman8699]

sry for requesting unrelated information can i get the place where to download the linux cast wallpapers

[@TheLinuxCast]

I get most of mine from wallhaven.

[@geoffreyhowells7290]

Linux hardening would be an interesting path to go down. You sir, get a thumbs-up before the video started. Thanks for creating good content.

[@eekee6034]

Well stated, well presented! And I had to LOL at, "Despite appearances, Linus Torvalds is a human." Some even say I'm a human, too. ;) But seriously, the myth of Linux security comes from human factors which are very common. I believed it for far too long. I blame it on a combination of insecurity with a variety of poorly considered beliefs. One of those beliefs is that "many eyes" somehow magically find _all_ the bugs. A spectacular example of how wrong this can be is a backdoor in OpenSSL which was present for _11 years_ before "many eyes" found it. If I remember right, that paticular backdoor was not fixed even when it was found because it was the price of being allowed to export OpenSSL from the USA.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Sorry if this video pinged you more than once.

[@JoeSmith-pu9hi]

Your channel is great.Mxlinux user.

[@something-from-elsewhere]

I mean I just containerized everything google and pretty much only use youtube so they don't get much they wouldn't get just from me bein logged in to youtube while using youtube, which wasn't all that painful tho required a _modicum_ of effort

[@conjurermast]

Have you seen what KDE telemetry is at the maximum setting? It's so little that I somewhat doubt the usefulness. Most telemetry on Linux has to be enabled by the user intentionally and you can always review the data you are sending & it's pretty much always something benign, they won't crawl your browser data and such..

[@OcteractSG]

Linux is often a more secure platform. While there are no improvements in the security model of the operating system, the fact that we get most of our applications from trusted software repositories rather than from websites is a major plus. You also have sandboxed applications in the form of Flatpaks and Snaps. Furthermore, while not inherent to Linux, technological literacy is better in the Linux community, and that makes successful phishing attacks against Linux users harder to pull off. These factors, in addition to being a smaller malware target, help Linux maintain its reputation for security. Both Windows and Linux can be hardened and improved with endpoint security suites, and both have pros and cons with their development model. Windows has the advantage of strict code review at all levels of the operating system, while Linux has similarly good code review on major projects and all components are fully open to view. On these fronts, Linux is equal but different. Finally, security is not just about intrusion, but also about availability. The TPM 2.0 requirement of Windows 11 does provide some security upgrades, but it's also a downgrade for data availability in some hardware failure events. Linux circumvents this issue entirely with password-based disk encryption (if the user chooses to use it), leaving behind the security improvements the TPM offers and placing the strength and maintenance of disk encryption directly into the hands of the user. For tech-savvy users, that's fine; for normies, maybe not so much. Depending on who you are, it can be a security upgrade or a downgrade. Honorable mention: Getting Secure Boot working on a Linux system with kernel modules installed (e.g., Broadcom WiFi driver, Nvidia driver, v4l2loopback, VirtualBox, ZFS) requires a lot more steps and is horrendously inconvenient to do securely. As bad as that may sound for Linux, Secure Boot is meant to stop an attacker from gaining covert persistence on a device that is being patrolled by an endpoint security suite. A Linux user would need to harden their system with SELinux or AppArmor, install an endpoint security suite (not just ClamAV), and only then would Secure Boot be worth consideration. And again, Secure Boot is not preventing infection; it is only mitigating the adversary's ability to maintain persistence on your device. Most people don't need Secure Boot and won't benefit from it even if they do encounter malware. And all of that is just security. I could write a similar essay about privacy, and I'm not even an expert in either of them.

[@tostadorafuriosa69]

Its linux better than windows? I woudn't say this is a question that can't be asnwered with a yes/no.

[@menzokruizinga]

Security depends on the user you can have The most secure systemen in the world but if you Have a stupid user then its useless i used Windows for Years and never had mailware or virus and the same goes For linux

[@donaldmickunas8552]

Likewise.

[@kolz4ever1980]

Yep same. You get dumb asses on here literally if you look right now saying that they didn't update their windows when turning on their system and even seeing videos where a guys says you don't need update often... 😆 These are the same people though that will complain in general that windows gets viruses.. funny how that works out.

[@scottb4767]

The simple fact that the majority of desktop aimed malware is coded for a Windows platform equates to a Linux box being more secure from the moment of installation. I agree that there is indeed malware for Linux. But the bad guys/girls are playing the numbers, and the numbers favor writing malware for Windows machines and not so much for Linux.

[@eekee6034]

I'm sure the majority of server aimed malware is coded for Linux.

[@relytheone853]

What matter most is that it's free, and the philosophy of freedom. That's all.

[@bitterseeds]

"You have no privacy, get over it." -- Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems (Jan 26, 1999) He said this then because it was true and it's been true ever since. A lot of folks will fool themselves and go to great lengths to fool themselves but it's true.

[@WilliamBrwn]

"You vill own nothing", get over it. -- Klaus Schwab This has been true since covid and becomes more obvious by the day. A lot of folks will fool themselves by thinking that they own something. They keep pondering on their so called rights, but eventually they will own nothing. I for one welcome our new overlords! Let them have what they desire! Let me say it like Arnold: "Screw you your freedoms"

[@donaldmickunas8552]

Indeed.

[@Xaito]

In the end it depends on your personal threat model. You can definitely mitigate many privacy invading practices. There are some low hanging fruits that everybody can and should pluck IMO. Just rolling over and giving up is just a victim mentality.

[@fractal_aura]

​@@Xaito 100% agreed - trying to regain a sliver of privacy nowadays is daunting, but we can't just resign to handing over all of our data and saying "why even try?"

[@STONE69_]

People think that, when something happens in a Browser or email etc. They think Linux is at fault LOL Its the person that is at fault in what you click, what you download, visiting unsecure sites. Thats on you, its has nothing to do with an operating system.

[@Soundwave142]

So, I have come to the conclusion that common sense still applies no matter what OS you are using, is what this video is really about. I am quite familiar with Linux and I never heard of that Linux Myth and when ever I said that Linux is more private I mean that it does come with things *spyware/adware and if I said about Linux being more secure, I would say that it is because there are not a lot of Linux malware for it. Funny thing about ads and Linux Canonical tried putting ads in Ubuntu, it really caused a major upscuttle! On Linux being privacy respecting, when you install Debian, it will ask to use "popularity contest" which surveys on what packages you download, and "No" is already preselected. A stark contrast to others like, on a printer driver installation, "yes" is preselected on the telemetry. On KDE Plasma, the telemetry is is disabled by default and does not even ask you about turning it on when you start it for the first time. * By definition, adware is just like spyware only to collect data to target you with ads on the computer itself and ad systems today parallels adware.

[@repairstudio4940]

Meltdown affected the Intel chipsets including Macs running the Intel chips. Indeed.

[@TheLinuxCast]

I know nothing about Macs, so I just had to assume

[@swagGhost]

Isnt what you arguing is that is IS more secure, just not as secure as you think?

[@Disrupterds]

I take issue with you confusing and conflating security and privacy. I admit that there seems to be crossover and that privacy could, in some sense, be seen as a security concern and that approaches to dealing with both are very similar: audit, identify, mitigate, repeat. However, I think they are best handled separately for obvious reasons. I would say when speaking to the KZbin class of users, however, that the thing to focus on is convenience. If it is convenient for you then it is also convenient for everyone else including attackers. DON'T do anything that makes your life more convenient on your computer with regards to security or personal information. Fill out every form on every page every time, don't use auto-fill. Don't allow cookies. Put all of your caches in ram drives. Don't use password managers. Don't use bio-metrics. Isolate your email and browser in a container. Use SSH tunneling to a secure system in your home or in the cloud if you use WiFi outside of your home. Be proactive about using your computer, don't be lazy and complacent.

[@bobbyfried7478]

GNU/Linux is only as safe as the user is. same with Windows. you gotta learn safe practices which is not hard to do. i still find Linux much safer but i don't open myself up to dangerous sites. i use Thunderbird for my email client and it seems to keep me from doing stupid S@#%T. mainly trying to de-google my life...which is difficult. one question though are you still running suse? hows that going?

[@Xaito]

I disagree. I think due to being open source, Linux is inherently more secure than Windows. MS is constantly pushing new software on your Windows without asking and you can't opt out. We don't know what kind of backdoors they might have built into the system or can deploy at any time they please. Any not airgapped system is going to be vulnerable in some way, but you definitely can dramatically reduce your attack surface on a Linux system. As for the privacy aspect, a little anecdote: I've switched like a month ago from being a windows user since Win 95 to Linux. I've installed a personal firewall because that's kind of a necessity on windows and I've thought it might be a good idea on Linux as well. I've taken a close look at the handful of connections the firewall had to manage and had to laugh. On a windows system there are sometimes more active connections constantly than you can follow in real time. I was blocking services left and right because I think they shouldn't need an internet connection. On Linux literally all connections made sense and nothing that has no business talking to the internet actually attempted to do so. After all those years, finally being in control and actually being able to trust the OS I ran on my PC and not having to deal with MS's BS gave me such a warm and fuzzy feeling at that moment.

[@PopsSinging]

I have been in IT for a few decades now with thousands of repairs under my belt, and I have spent more time fixing bugs and issues with Linux (umbrella covering all distros) than I ever have with Windows. Now to be clear, I have fixed way more Windows systems, but the OS itself is to blame in a significantly less number of cases in Windows (For instance, Linux and Windows breaking after an update). Most of the problems with Windows I have encountered are down to user problems like you mentioned, where the user will download a virus laden program, or a rogue program will cause issues, and in less than 1% of all cases the problem has not been repairable and require a reinstallation of the OS, in Linux it is way higher. Hardware issues surprisingly make up a small fraction of repairs for either. Almost all fixes now require only a flash drive of software, time and patience. I am not touching the privacy issue, because I have never had a client say "Oh my, Microsoft is collecting my data, wipe my computer and install Linux right now!!!" In fact most just shrug it off, when the subject comes up. That is the reality.

[@eekee6034]

About 10 years ago, I knew a sysadmin who was finding his niche as a fixer of older systems still in use. He made this little bar graph in IRC chat with | characters for difficulty and $ for how much you got paid. Windows's difficulty bar was less than half the length of Linux's and the pay more than double. VMS's difficulty bar was much shorter still and the pay, I don't know, it was too long ago, but I remember it was _a lot!_ :)

[@Zandman26]

The way Linux handles privileges makes it more secure than Windows, as a Windows user you are by default also the administrator. In Linux you are by default a user and have to take extra steps to become an administrator. Otherwise I agree for the most parts.

[@eekee6034]

Seeing those extra steps misled me into thinking Linux is more secure all the way back in 1998. Many years later; mid-2010s in fact, I had a friend who described his _rebellious youth._ He would go onto certain websites, download "modules" and hack into Linux servers. It was like a game: you get in, you try to keep others out. He says he had no idea what he was doing, and I believe him because 20 years later he still wasn't a programmer like he wanted to be. He quit Linux for OpenBSD the same year I got Linux and formed this opinion about privileges and security. Besides all this, Windows now asks the user for permission to do administrator-type tasks.

[@Zandman26]

@@eekee6034 Sorry, but this is just boosting with no to little backing in reality. Yes Windows will give you a dialog with a "Ok" button as "Security", and because this is so "safe" it has been bypassed many times all ready. While on Linux your always required to give the actual password if you want admin rights, you can't just bypass this because you selected that you should be the administrator when you setup your computer. But Windows security have gotten better over the years, but still suffers from that it's built with security as an afterthought. While Linux was built with security in mind from the beginning. And this is because in the early days it got popular with system administrators that demanded security.

[@eekee6034]

@@Zandman26 Yours is exactly the kind of misinformation I'm trying to counter. You're entirely wrong about Windows "security as an afterthought"; home editions have long been based on the NT kernel designed for professional use, including servers. As for Linux, look up the history of the Internet in the 90s and reread my post. In the 90s, over 90% of websites ran on LAMP -- Linux Apache MySQL PhP -- and as I explained, children could hack into those servers with no deep understanding. This shows how meaningless it is to say, "Linux was designed with security from the beginning." You're looking at a feature meant to keep professional users from giving in to temptation in the 70s and imagining this has any real use in blocking malware. I wish I still had my old CD-ROMs from the 90s because there was a kernel document in which Linus Torvalds says he realized he had to get serious about security in connection with the 2.0 kernel. That was 1996. My acquaintance quit Linux as too insecure in 1998. There's also a comment relating a remote root exploit in kernel 2.2, year 2000. This involved an lpr daemon the server administrator didn't even know was running -- _exactly_ like a big complaint against Windows security in -- what was it... the mid-00s I think -- and just as easily blocked with firewalls. I'll leave you to do your own research on Windows Firewall, but I'm very happy with it. Note that the admin interface matters; make security difficult and the average server will have more holes. Here's another issue: For many years, well into this century, Linux security was heavily criticized by security professionals because privileges were granted with a pseudo-user and group scheme, not a capability scheme. This goes back to the _marginal_ machines Unix was designed for in the 70s, combined with the fact that it wasn't designed to be a top-tier OS. MULTICS (developed 1964-67) had capabilities and a whole lot else besides. Unix was small and lightweight. This can be hard to understand. Even though I'm nearly 50, I'm a youngster relative to the history of Unix, and so it was hard for me to learn that Unix was primarily the cheap option for cheap computers, relative to the norms of serious professional computing. Unix never was the most secure OS and Linux inherited its design. It spread into some high-end computers as it became something of a standard, with many implementations and relatively many programmers and admins who knew how to work with it. Why did Linux stick with this bad design into the 00s? Likely for performance, initially on the barely adequate servers of the 90s, later finding a home on supercomputers. Linux is so optimization-heavy as to anger some proponents of good clean design. There's so much more; much I don't know because I learned a very difficult and painful lesson long ago: security is too large and deep a field for me. I once imagined that Linux was secure for the same reasons as you, completely against the words of competent professionals who have been telling the truth all along.

[@KikoJuarez]

Wait... Linus is human?! And in all seriousness, does canonical really put ads in the terminal? I was not aware of that fact! Can you or anyone here expand on that a bit, please? Thank you, and have a great day!

[@TheLinuxCast]

Yeah the do whenever you run apt. It is for Ubuntu Pro

[@Daniel-cc5ph]

Linux Security: I would say Linux IS more secure than Windows in general. Specifically it's easier to harden against attacks... (That would be a nice topic to talk about, hardening Linux or Windows for general home use...) E.g. take the current russian war against Ukraine and the western isolation of russia as a consequence: I still wonder, why all the internet backbone servers (dns, routing, etc.) are still working so seamlessly! I think most of the rewards for this are to be addressed to Linux and it's ability to be hardened up bulletproof. If that was not the case, i would suspect that the internet stopped working some time ago when russian intelligence hackers tried to attack western infrastructure, don't you think? Chapeau to Linus Torvalds and all the kernel Team to make our infrastructure secure!!! :) That's one of the most important reason, why i use Linux in daily use, because of security. Next comes customization, privacy and opensource support! Best regards Daniel :)

[@tonykeltsflorida]

No matter what OS you use, keep your ports closed. Be smart online. Linux is the best OS. Web browsers will always be a target for malware and ads.

[@Driskoll97]

The use of official repositories from distributions makes it impossible to install malware. However, yes you shouldn't be a troglodite and install packages from shady websites or torrents. Same logic applies to Windows. Though I must say that I haven't ever used Microsoft's store to test how malware free is it by myself.

[@BDnevernind]

This video refutres itself. Total clickbait. Less secure than people think/claim? Sure. As insecure as Windows? Absolutely not. Dude keeps pointing out that things "CAN" happen on Linux, but admits every attack vector is far less common or vulnerable on Linux.

[@n1vz3r]

Thanks Matt for spreading the common sense among us Linux users

[@hipdad9461]

RAWK ON !!!

[@TheHighwinder]

FINALLY. It's not that Windows is less secure than Linux - that's not true. It's just that the vast majority of Windows users use their systems logging on as the equivalent of root (their accounts have admin permissions by default). If they create a standard non-admin user account and use it for everyday logon and usage, Windows is frickin' bulletproof and shows why nearly every government around the world uses it on the desktop instead of Linux. Let's see how secure Linux is if you continually log in as root for everyday use just like the average Windows user does completely unwittingly. This is where the bullshit about Linux being more secure is instantly proven wrong - it just enjoys security through obscurity and non-default root logins. That doesn't make the OS more secure. This is the little detail you never hear the Windows haters admit about Linux, but any real sysadmin knows that this is the elephant in the room when it comes to Linux's supposed superior security.