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"Today we look at the reason why hackers always prefer Linux over Mac, Windows, and other operating systems. You may have your own reasons for choosing Linux but what do hackers really look forward to while working with Linux."

Microsoft has published PowerShell, its scripting and automation platform, as open source under the permissive MIT licence, as well as porting it to Linux and Mac, with an alpha build now available on GitHub. PowerShell is built on Microsoft's .NET platform, and one of the enabling pieces here is .NET Core, the refactored fork of .NET which runs cross-platform. PowerShell "Core" has already turned up on Nano Server, the barebones edition of Windows Server 2016, and the newly announced release will run on .NET Core on Mac and Linux. The initial Linux support is for Ubuntu, CentOS and RedHat. "Others...

Redmond races to revoke Secure Boot policy Microsoft leaked the golden keys that unlock Windows-powered tablets, phones and other devices sealed by Secure Boot – and is now scrambling to undo the blunder. These skeleton keys can be used to install non-Redmond operating systems on locked-down computers. In other words, on devices that do not allow you to disable Secure Boot even if you have administrator rights – such as ARM-based Windows RT tablets – it is now possible to sidestep this block and run, say, GNU/Linux or Android. What's more, it is believed it will be impossible for Microsoft...

At Build 2016, Microsoft introduced to the world the Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta) [WSL], which enables developers to run native Ubuntu user-mode console binaries through the Bash shell in Windows 10. If you’re in the Windows Insider program, you’ve had the opportunity to try out this feature using the latest Windows Anniversary Update Insider Builds.

Canonical, the parent company of popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, has disclosed that its user web forums have suffered a major data breach. Over the weekend, Canonical said that it had come across claims that a third party had a copy of the Ubuntu Forums database. The company was able to verify that a breach had taken place, with a database containing details of two million Ubuntu Forums users being leaked. No "active passwords" were copied over, although the attacker downloaded the random, hashed and salted strings generated by Ubuntu Single Sign On that is used for Forum logins. Canonical shut...

There is a common misconception that all things Linux are bulletproof. The fact is, no software is infallible. When news of a Linux vulnerability hits, some Windows and Mac fans like to taunt users of the open source kernel. Sure, it might be in good fun, but it can negatively impact the Linux community's reputation -- a blemish, if you will. Today, Canonical announces that the Ubuntu forums have been hacked. Keep in mind, this does not mean that the operating system has experienced a vulnerability or weakness. The only thing affected are the online forums that people use to...

Microsoft has released a protocol that allows developers to easily add new programming language support for coding tools, in partnership with developer workspaces provider Codenvy and enterprise Linux distributor Red Hat. Whereas traditional coding tools tend to support a single programming language, the Microsoft-led protocol aims to make sure the tools can handle whichever language developers work in. The language server protocol lets developers code in different languages without having to switch editors or development environments. Microsoft engineer Erich Gamma said the protocol came into existence after the company intergrated OmniSharp for C# and TypeScript servvers for its Visual Studio...

Redmond will support it inside Azure and send code back to the FreeBSD Foundation Microsoft has published its own distribution of FreeBSD 10.3 in order to make the OS available and supported in Azure. Jason Anderson, principal PM manager at Microsoft's Open Source Technology Center says Redmond “took on the work of building, testing, releasing and maintaining the image” so it could “ensure our customers have an enterprise SLA for their FreeBSD VMs running in Azure”. Microsoft did so “to remove that burden” from the FreeBSD Foundation, which relies on community contributions. Redmond is not keeping its work on FreeBSD...

The abacus-shufflers of analyst firm IDC have revised their 2016 PC sales forecasts downwards. The firm now says PC shipments “... are forecast to decline by 7.3% year over year”. That's “roughly two per cent below earlier projections as conditions have been weaker than expected.” The firm names “weak currencies, depressed commodity prices, political uncertainty, and delayed projects” as the weaker conditions impacting sales. Windows 10 isn't helping matters either, because lots of people are availing themselves of free Windows 10 upgrades rather than buying a new PC. The firm also says that “while a large share of enterprises are...

The release of Ubuntu 16.04 last week is good news for computer users who are upset over the recent development of Microsoft turning Windows into an operating system that is essentially spyware. As an open-source Linux distribution, Ubuntu is a great operating system for users concerned about privacy.This marks the 24th release of the Ubuntu operating system, which has become perhaps the most popular Linux distribution in the world. Ubuntu 16.04 — codenamed Xenial Xerus — is also the sixth Long Term Support (LTS) release, meaning it will receive free security updates and support for five years. Canonical — the...

... Telstra has invested $10.3 million in San Francisco-based open source web developer Nginx, the telco revealed today. Telstra Ventures chief Mark Sherman said the decision to invest was driven by Nginx's increasing global popularity, and technology leadership in the web application delivery and deployment market. Telstra's websites run on Nginx currently. Nginx was developed by Kazakhstan-born, Russian developer Igor Sysoev, and can be used to serve web pages, and act as a reverse proxy and load balancer for sites. The server runs on the Unix, Linux, BSD, Apple OS X, Oracle Solaris, IBM AIX and Microsoft WIndows operating systems.

The Xubuntu team is pleased to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 16.04. Xubuntu 16.04 is an LTS (Long-Term Support) release and will be supported for 3 years. The final release images are available as Torrents and direct downloads from http://xubuntu.org/getxubuntu/ As the main server will be very busy in the first few days after release, we recommend using the Torrents wherever possible.

Asked to recommend a Linux desktop, users respond in a number of ways. Many recommend their own preferences. Others suggest the desktop environment that they believe is closest in appearance and function to Windows or OS X.A while ago, though, I realized that the seven major Linux desktops can be ranked on a spectrum from the highly customizable to those that are little more than launchers for their applications.Starting with the customizers, my rankings along this spectrum are:7. KDE Ever see a Windows users' reactions to all the options on a Linux desktop? Well, KDE produces the same look of...

Linux is all grown up. It has nothing left to prove. There's never been a year of the Linux desktop and there probably never will be, but it runs on the majority of the world's servers. It never took over the desktop, it did an end-run around it: there are more Linux-based client devices accessing those servers than there are Windows boxes.Linux Foundation boss Jim Zemlin puts it this way: "It's in literally billions of devices. Linux is the native development platform for every SOC. Freescale, Qualcomm, Intel, MIPS: Linux is the immediate choice. It's the de facto platform. It's...

FOSS Force has learned that we shouldn’t write obituaries until we actually see a death certificate. SCO intends to file an appeal over the dismissal of its case against IBM. On Feburary 29, we told you that SCO was “undeniably and reliably dead” after the company signed off on Judge David Nuffer’s dismissal of what remained of its case against IBM. Guess what? We were wrong. The once upon a time Linux and Unix company, which developed and distributed the Caldera GNU/Linux distribution, evidently has not yet been pulled from life support. On Tuesday, the company filed notification that it...

Today at BUILD in the Day One keynote Kevin Gallo announced that you can now run "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows." This is a new developer feature included in a Windows 10 "Anniversary" update (coming soon). It lets you run native user-mode Linux shells and command-line tools unchanged, on Windows. This isn't Bash or Ubuntu running in a VM. This is a real native Bash Linux binary running on Windows itself. It's fast and lightweight and it's the real binaries. This is an genuine Ubuntu image on top of Windows with all the Linux tools I use like awk, sed,...

Short Bytes: Microsoft and Canonical, Ubuntu Linux’s parent company, are partnering to allow you to use Ubuntu on Windows 10. The official announcement is expected to be made at Microsoft’s BUILD 2016 developer conference later today. This partnership is expected to integrate Windows and Linux on the developer desktop.

Google in 2012 sought to help insurgents overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, according to State Department emails receiving fresh scrutiny this week. Messages between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's team and one of the company's executives detailed the plan for Google to get involved in the region.

Browse the web with privacy and security with these best secure browsers. Protect your privacy online with the eight best secure browsers you can use in 2016.What does the idea of a secure browser mean in 2016? The world is now more complex than it was in 2010 when we last looked at the contenders. People are more oriented to mobile devices running under very different conditions while a range of security features such as URL filtering, download protection and do not track have transformed mainstream desktop browsers such as Chrome, IE and Firefox. In a sense all browsers could...

Microsoft has ported its SQL Server software to Linux and has promised to release it in full by next year. From today, the Windows giant, which once likened Linux to cancer, will show off to a lucky few a preview of its SQL database's core engine for the open-source operating system. The full SQL Server 2016 for Linux will be made available by mid-2017, we're told. Scott Guthrie, exec veep of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, said in a blog post on Monday that the Linux port "will enable SQL Server to deliver a consistent data platform across Windows Server...