"3. Virus, Spyware, Adware? None of these can affect a Linux
based system. In fact, you don’t even have to install an
anti-virus software which bogs down system performance in
Windows.
"That is an overly optimistic statement. Of course one can write
software that takes advantage of vulnerabilities even under Linux,
or any other OS, really. But the commenters that complain about
this assertion are also missing the point: They talk about how
Linux security is based on the fact that there is less of an effort
made by the malware authors to exploit Linux, due to its smaller
market share. The 'less effort' part might be true, but it is not
the complete picture. The Linux OS architecture is more secure and
desktops apps are not normally run in admin mode. Exploiting Linux
by clickable, executable email attachments is possible, but more
complex and requires more steps for the user to go through. If
Linux would gain significant market share, we would certainly see
an increase in exploit attempts. How effective they would be,
however, is another story. For the time being, though, GNU/Linux
systems clearly have much less of a risk of being infected by
anything than Windows machines."
