I have used Windows on the Internet since Windows 95. I likewise use the hosts file on Windows machines in addition to multiple levels of security such as firewalls, Microsoft’s Security Essentials, Norton or Avast, MalwareBytes, etc. I have pretty good sense where not to “drive” on the Internet. I don’t pick up viruses using all of that protection, but it imposes an unacceptable (to me) level of CPU overhead. Not to mention the time to administer updates, review scan logs, etc. It’s a pain in the neck. I would rather do something else. Worse, most people are not as attentive to security as I am; I know this because I have cleaned up infected systems for a lot of people over the years. I have battled viruses for 25 years, since the DOS era.
I finally decided there had to be a more convenient way to surf the web than using Windows which is a virus magnet. Linux has proven for me to be a reasonable alternative. I still use Windows sometimes, strictly offline. Online, I use only Linux. If I really want to surf dangerously, I can boot a diskless computer from an incorruptible Linux CD, such as Puppy Linux. If I ever suspected a virus, all I would have to do is turn off the computer and POOF! the virus is gone.
It seems to me that Linux should be pretty immune to most Windows viruses - it has different permissions, different binaries, and no Registry. Therefore I think Linux is more immune than simply “security through obscurity”. So far as I can find, most Linux-specific viruses don’t exist in the wild, and they still require the user to be duped into installing something.
Thanks for your reply. I have never used Microsoft’s Security Essentials (and Windows Defender is too independent), and after Windows 9x, i have rarely run with an active resident antivirus, but i periodically will run anti virus scans and do use MalwareBytes, while regularly examining what is running and what is set to run (Autoruns is helpful for the latter, as is is WinPatrol, and Process Explorer for the former) and am careful in surfing and where i get software and what i open, etc.
Like maintaining a car, these are things which should be done but overall take little time. And i have experience in getting rid of persistent viruses and assorted malware on PCS of others, which i thank God i have not had to do on mine, except for a couple issues over many years, one of which was my fault.
Thus my CPU load is minimal, though with typically 70+ tabs open in Firefox (in only 4 rows by using TabMixPlus and the Noia theme) and often a dozen documents open, I use of most of my 3gb or ram over time. I tried OpenSuse 12 for a while last spring but that came up short (and after much time getting my printers to work, among other things) and the ram use was about the same. Thus a 64 bit PC is what is desired, but is too much $ right now.
But again, Linux is useful and attractive to many, and if they could do with it what Firefox has done then it will become more of an alternative to Windows. And which is helpful, like as we need AMD as an alternative to Intel (which recently excluded the Boy Scouts from any more donations, which is was a chief funder of).
I offered some suggestions a while ago for a Linux Mint version (http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=565693&sid=043779f2bc0a4dcccf1c34ea0cb27bbf#p565693) in trying to improve it, but while many flavors of Linux is one of its strong points, it also means that using each one can require learning like as with new version of Windows, and with different software repositories.