Windows is the best operating system?

[Aloone_Jonez]

OOOoooh that is sooo true!!

Yes society is primarily to blame, in an ideal world we wouldn't have to bother with security, you wouldn't need to lock your front door or car but welcome to the real world. MS should do a better job in protecting us we shouldn't have to run anti-virus or compromise the functionality of Windows in order to configure a secure system. Come to think of it we should be able to choose which operating system we use without having to worry about software and hardware incompatibilities.

I have said it before and I will say it again, check Secunia for advisories on Linux/Unix and you will see that it really isn't that hot on security after all.

It depends on the application, take a server for example BSD will be the best, and Linux and Windows server 2003 are about the same but this is totally differant if you talk about the desktop/comsumer market.

People percieve Windows to be the insecure OS because it's what they use and the issues can and do affect them.

Yes, Windows isn't inherrantly insecure, (I've posted these links before but I don't see any harm in reposting them) Windows has been Vandalised by MS in order to keep backwards compatability with old programs by giving XP insecure default install options. Windows XP can be set up with a reaonable level of security, I've done this before and I didn't even need anti-virus but often this compromises functionality - some programs require the registry and folder persmisions to be tweaked before they will run if at all.

Even the cut down OSes they use in phones have been found to have plenty of holes - Security and Function are oposed. The more function something has the harder it is to secure.

Windows CE maybe?
Seriously, security doesn't all come down to the operating system being run a lot is to do with the configuration, if you surf the net as root in Linux then expect to get owned and the same thing goes in Windows unless you have a darn good anti-virus and firewall. You're right about functionality vs security (the latter often compromises functionality too) , a well designed OS (UNIX) can be configured to be secure while remaining functional and a poorly designed OS (Windows) tends to compromised one over the other.