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Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by danieldk on Thursday January 12, 2017 @03:28AM (#13380738)
The Linux you remember is very different than what I remember. To say that back then Linux was unusable on the desktop would be an understatement. Yes, you had Red Hat, Mandrake (later Mandriva) and SuSE that were trying hard to provide a usable desktop distribution, but nothing was working well. And people needed Win32 apps because there were no alternatives usable for Linux.

There was a reason why you could buy Linux in bookstores for years. People were actually using it. For instance, SuSE had quite a stronghold in Europe. I was still in high school and I knew quite a lot of people that were using SuSE Linux.

coupled with Linux's security

What security? It's running every application unsandboxed and each X11 application can read all keystrokes, mouse events, make screengrabs, etc. Linux on the desktop is way behind macOS and Windows when it comes to security. It's just not a very interesting target, because of its small marketshare.

One can only hope that distributors will follow the lead of Fedora and move to Wayland soon.

Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by babuskov on Thursday January 12, 2017 @05:33AM (#13381235)
> Linux on the desktop is way behind ... Windows

At that time Windows security was a joke. You could write anywhere on the whole disk and you could "read all keystrokes, mouse events, make screengrabs" as well.

Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by tajen on Thursday January 12, 2017 @06:20AM (#13381411)
Heck, some antiviruses were distributed as ActiveX, meaning they executed directly by browsing to a page in IE.
Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by WayneBro on Friday January 13, 2017 @12:31PM (#13392629)
Gee, I've been using Windows since version 3.1 and never ever, ever had a major problem with the allegedly bad desktop security. Also, Linux since RedHat 5...and I've definitely spent way more time configuring Linux to do shit that Windows does without any configuration than I ever spent on Windows security issues.

Windows has always had the best desktop system and it still does. Some loud minority always talks about how great the Mac UI is but I think it's hideous and most of the world agrees with me since nobody copied the Mac OS' major UI gimmicks (and if they did, it was seen as a stupid unpopular mistake).

Anyway - I run all three in my business and I'm well versed in each of them. Linux is great for servers and I need Macs for iOS stuff, but nothing beats the sheer convenience of Windows, the best desktop OS that ever was.

Maybe one day Windows will become open source and all the Linux folks can stop trying to catch up on the desktop. Until then, I'll gladly throw my money at Microsoft for providing such a beautiful system for me to use.

Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by chris_wot on Thursday January 12, 2017 @05:16AM (#13381178)
Can't you capture all Windows messages also?
Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by stevekemp on Thursday January 12, 2017 @06:16AM (#13381394)
It used to be a big deal - you could use the shatter attack to read the contents of text controls that stored passwords, etc:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shatter_attack

These days less of a problem. Message injection/sniffing between applications in different contexts doesn't work. Unless you're the administrator, in which case it is game over already.

Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by danieldk on Thursday January 12, 2017 @05:53AM (#13381302)
Windows has UI isolation between processes with different privilege levels per UIPI.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vishalsi/2006/11/30/what-is...

(Note: I am not a Windows expert.)

Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by fnord123 on Thursday January 12, 2017 @07:02AM (#13381581)
Vista was only released in 2006. I think the thread is discussing the period a few years before that.
Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by danieldk on Thursday January 12, 2017 @09:19AM (#13382341)
I was reacting to:

Nowadays [...] coupled with Linux's security and remote debugging capabilities, it's a very good fit for my father for example.

Re:Why I switched from OS X to Linux by fnord123 on Thursday January 12, 2017 @10:07AM (#13382728)
Right, well as you point out, nowadays Wayland is default on major distributions like Rebecca Black OS and some minor players like Fedora.

In any event, when a user is compromised, it's lol Windows. But when Yahoo is compromised, is anyone opining security in Linux? Or are these social engineering hacks?