<story><title>Why GNU/Linux Viruses Are Fairly Uncommon</title><url>https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/evilmalware.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tombert</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s about 95% of it.  There are other things that give Linux a bit more of an edge in this space as well.&lt;p&gt;For example, every time I use Windows, it feels like every app is asking to run as administrator.  Admittedly, I haven&amp;#x27;t used Windows for about a year, but in Linux, it&amp;#x27;s pretty rare that I ever do admin&amp;#x2F;sudo outside of the command line, and I only ever use it when I know what I&amp;#x27;m doing. Obviously this isn&amp;#x27;t something that could not be fixed in Windows, and maybe it already has been.</text></item><item><author>chc-sc</author><text>I think the real answer is that relatively few people use GNU&amp;#x2F;Linux</text></item><item><author>edoceo</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a joke, not analysis. Was hoping for the latter.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tptacek</author><text>So far as I can tell, there are two kinds of (effectively) single-user systems, in which a malware infection is targeting a single person:&lt;p&gt;1. The kind where users are rarely asked to assume admin privileges and all the data a user has to protect is available without administrator access.&lt;p&gt;2. The kind where users are frequently asked to assume admin privileges and some of the data a user has to protect requires administrator access.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t believe Linux has any real edge here. I agree that 95% of the effect is due to Linux&amp;#x27;s paltry desktop user base; I&amp;#x27;d guess than at least 4% is due simply to malware that targets Linux not being called &amp;quot;a virus&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why GNU/Linux Viruses Are Fairly Uncommon</title><url>https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/evilmalware.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tombert</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s about 95% of it.  There are other things that give Linux a bit more of an edge in this space as well.&lt;p&gt;For example, every time I use Windows, it feels like every app is asking to run as administrator.  Admittedly, I haven&amp;#x27;t used Windows for about a year, but in Linux, it&amp;#x27;s pretty rare that I ever do admin&amp;#x2F;sudo outside of the command line, and I only ever use it when I know what I&amp;#x27;m doing. Obviously this isn&amp;#x27;t something that could not be fixed in Windows, and maybe it already has been.</text></item><item><author>chc-sc</author><text>I think the real answer is that relatively few people use GNU&amp;#x2F;Linux</text></item><item><author>edoceo</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a joke, not analysis. Was hoping for the latter.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Const-me</author><text>&amp;gt; and maybe it already has been.&lt;p&gt;Not completely, but I think it&amp;#x27;s mostly OK. I only see UAC prompts rarely, usually in one of these 3 cases.&lt;p&gt;1. Some software that I&amp;#x27;ve written has good reasons to require elevation, I sometimes work on low level system software which uses weird WinAPI calls.&lt;p&gt;2. When installing software. The default location of installed programs, C:\Program Files, is read only unless running elevated. Probably done for extra security.&lt;p&gt;3. When using very old software, or bad quality ports from other OSes. UAC was introduced in Vista, some software which was written for WinXP or older versions requires elevation for no good reason.</text></comment>