Which is the best platform Windows or Unix?
By supermario69
@supermario69 (57)
Philippines
May 26, 2010 7:55pm CST
Windows operating system is designed purely for microcomputers and it is the popular and widely used platform today for microcomputers. It's designed structure is called "microkernel" and it is interdependent with the other parts, that is why it is easily and very proned to hackers and vulnerable to viruses. Once, a part of it is attacked/hacked or damage by a virus, the entire system will be corrupted. On the other hand, the UNIX operating system is the one that is mainly used for supercomputers, mainframe and even to microcomputers and other small devices. The only reason or hindrance that this platform is not very popular and widely used for microcomputers is the high cost of license per CPU. But this type of operating system is very hard to attack/hack or damage by viruses because of its "monolithic" design where the kernel itself is protected and not too dependent to the other parts of the platform. Linus Torvalds release a free version of this UNIX operating system and it is gaining popularity but many find difficulty using it because most of the applications or softwares available today are designed in windows and will not run under under Unix. Other software companies makes a UNIX version of their applications while others are making windows emulator to enable a windows-based application to run under UNIX.
1 response
@sumit057 (227)
• India
3 Jul 10
Generally speaking, all of the Unix/Linux variants were built from the ground up as a multi-user operating system, thus security was always important. Systems like Windows started where the user was an Admin and had full control over the box.
Windows is by far the most popular OS platform. Therefore, what do you think most malware writers target? Windows systems. That's not to say that a protected Windows system is an easy target, but all OS have security holes. MACs tend to have less malware problems but that is simply due to a smaller user base and therefore less incentive to write against. *nix systems are in the mix, and have quite a few glaring security issues but BSD systems are generally known as some of the better *nix OOB locked down systems.
No matter what OS you choose, the weakest link is 99.9% of the time the user. Everything from email, to web browsing, to misconfiguring network settings, to not installing and securing networks with PSPs all provide the vast majority of the holes that are exploited.
