drhowarddrfine - 3:17 pm on Nov 17, 2012 (gmt 0)

@bill - The difference between *nix and Windows is that *nix does not allow download or installation or execution of any file unless each of those is given permission by the user to do so. Regular users cannot even do any of those for files that have access to the root of the system. So any virus or trojan would need to clear 3-4 hurdles just to get onto a users system to cause damage. Even then, that damage would be restricted to the user's files alone and not the system as a whole. Drive-by infections, so common in Windows, are virtually impossible on *nix.

This is one of the reasons that the last effective virus against *nix was in 2001 and only last a day or two.