Why Windows Is Not a Safe Operating System | Free Antivirus

The threat situation in which users of the Windows operating system from Microsoft find themselves has long been precarious and is becoming more and more dangerous. Compared to all other operating systems, the number of malware available is gigantic. Time and again, new loopholes are discovered that pave the way for attackers into the system and that is only slowly or insufficiently closed. Also, there is the danger of untrained users who are easy to dup and therefore easy victims.

Half the Truth

Anyone who wants to protect Windows against these allegations usually argues as follows: Windows has a huge market share and is, therefore, the only interesting target. Apple and Linux are by no means as widespread and that's the only reason why there is hardly any malware for these systems.

But this is only half the truth. On the one hand, the market share of Windows is falling, not least because the importance of the desktop systems on which Windows runs is falling. In the mobile sector, the other operating systems, iOS and Linux in the form of Android, dominate the market and Windows is the insignificant third.

Furthermore, Linux is the dominant factor on the server market and on appliances (devices such as DSL routers, firewalls, etc.), but this is not reflected in the variety of malware available. While the largest number of malware programs for Android exists in the mobile sector, this number with a few hundred programs, which you also have to install yourself almost exclusively from questionable sources, is downright ridiculous compared to the many millions of malware programs for Windows that the manufacturers of Antivirus programs count, and they can often install themselves unnoticed when visiting normal websites due to security gaps.

The spread of Windows alone cannot explain the unspeakable situation.

Wrong Decisions in the Development

If you look at the development of computer technology and pay special attention to the development of Windows, you will notice some wrong decisions on the part of Microsoft and its partners such as IBM, which turn out to be serious problems at least in retrospect.

Windows began its career in the late 1980s as a graphical user interface for the MS-DOS operating system, which was used on IBM PCs. These computers were designed to be cheap and simple work tools. They were easily expandable, but network compatibility was not initially considered. These computers had an uncomplicated file system that was incapable of associating files with users, and neither was there any distinction between users.

On the other hand, at that time, there was already Unix, an operating system that had existed since 1969 and was network-compatible from the start, was able to differentiate between users and could regulate different rights for users as well as the ownership of files. This is important for two reasons: the OS X operating system favored by Apple today is based on a Unix variant called BSD, and the technology of the free and open-source Linux operating system is based on Unix without being a Unix itself.

DOS / Windows, on the other hand, initially knew no networks, no users, and no authorization structures. All of these things were only retrofitted by Microsoft when this became essential. In a connected world like today's, that's a huge disadvantage.

Old Technology and Watered Down Structures

Network technology was upgraded when Novell Netware began to make IBM PCs network-compatible without DOS and Windows. Windows learned to network with version 3.11 "for Workgroups" because market shares were lost.

In the subsequent versions Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME the technology changed little. All these systems have the ability to differentiate and recognize users via a login, which in practice only led to a personalized view of the workspace. All users had full rights to the system and to all files. And what's more, you could cancel the login process and still get full access to the entire system. From a security standpoint, this was totally inadequate.

One rightly differentiates between administrators and simple users in professional computer systems. Only administrators can change the system, install or delete software, and so on. Simple users can only use the programs approved for them and can only edit their own files. And sensible administrators do normal user work even with limited user accounts. This is a necessary security measure because no one can expect a simple user to have the knowledge of an administrator. But that's exactly what Microsoft put its users in. And other “simplifications” such as the unspeakably stupid hiding of the file extensions did the rest.

In Windows XP, the professional branch of the industrial operating systems Windows NT and Windows 2000 was finally combined with the consumer branch. But the result was still mixed: the Windows XP installation routines created a single user account with administrative rights. Also, it has been made easy to switch off the obligation to log in every time the system starts. This created a situation in which almost every Windows computer started automatically with a fully authorized administrator user. The NTFS file system, which was new in the consumer sector, was finally able to differentiate between users with different authorizations and manage rights to files, but this additional capability was hardly used.

As if that weren't enough, even if a user had so much expertise to set up an administrative account only for administrative purposes and to create restricted user accounts for himself and all other users of the computer, working with such restricted accounts was often hardly possible because Microsoft did nothing pretended to encourage program developers to adopt sensible programming behaviors and guidelines. As a result, many programs continued to work only under an administrator account. The result was an army of Windows XP computers in homes and companies alike, working with full privileges all the time while being connected to the Internet. And Windows XP stayed on the market for 13 years and unfortunately it is still not gone for good.

Protect the User From Himself - an Impossibility

Before the introduction of Windows Vista, Microsoft also recognized that the situation of administrator users under Windows XP had become intolerable.

Nevertheless, it was avoided to make the necessary and sensible step to separate administrator and user mandatory. Perhaps that would have been too difficult to sell after all these years of the simple if uncertain, unity of both roles; but it would have been reasonable.

Instead, the administrator was disempowered. If the ignorant user has administrator rights, the damage must be limited by giving one or more queries and warnings to every attempt to do administrative things - or completely preventing it.

Under Vista, these queries were so numerous that the system was terribly annoying. And especially those users who otherwise had little knowledge of administrative matters quickly found a way to switch off the annoying and incomprehensible messages. As a result, any additional security gained was lost again.

The Windows Reflex

With Windows 7, the situation improved a bit and there were fewer queries. But the Windows user is still bothered with dialog boxes to this day: queries from the system, incomprehensible licenses that have to be accepted and loads of other questions during software installation, messages popping up from running programs that are barely understandable. With Windows users, reflexive behavior can therefore often be recognized: dialogues are generally confirmed with OK in a flash or always closed with the X, without the content of a glance being appreciated. This is also how you install malware.

It is still the case today that administrators in Windows can do less and less, while simple users still have administrator rights and answer questions automatically and without mind. That is why the security situation in Windows is so serious.

After all, nowadays it would be possible to safeguard a current Windows system sensibly by using an administrator account only for administrative purposes and using limited user accounts for daily work. Unfortunately, nobody does it.

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