> Are PC-based scams really all that common these days?
Ultra common. My mother in law fell for one: only 350 EUR but still...
I confiscated her Windows laptop and had her buy a Chromebook.
Most private Windows installations are security nightmare where a single click on "Yes" installs malware with admin rights: some things just never change and that's why so many people get scammed.
A Chromebook with the DNS set to 1.1.1.3 [1] goes a long way to protecting grandma...
[1] 1.1.1.3 is CloudFlare's anti-malware+anti-porn DNS: I know, I know, it's CloudFlare and some here don't like them... But I actually like CloudFlare, especially their stock I bought @ 48 USD so now I root for them!
I mean, is that not also the case on Unix machines (ignoring stuff like Android for the time being).
It's hardly that much more effort to type sudo and enter a password, the problem is and has always been the users. By that I mean the vast majority of Windows users haven't got a clue what they are doing.
Linux is more secure not due necessarily to any active interest in security. If anything, we are vastly more skeptical of the security industry than the average windows admin in a traditional company. The design of the operating system really has very little to do with practical security these days, it's all down to the users.
It's also the case that a lot of non-malware on Windows behaves like malware. Microsoft supports and enables in various ways what are essentially backdoors for vendors to install rootkit esque junk in enterprise managed computers.
Linux kernel devs aren't going to be nearly as receptive to do such a thing because of the obvious problem of attack surface enlargement. Microsoft is not concerned at all about the actual security of their computers, they are concerned with looking like they care about security to their business partners that have a massive financial interest involved in ensuring that their biggest cash cow platform and set of users cannot ever stop paying protection money. And they'll make sure to feed your data to their AI models behind your back while they are at it.
The security industry is the only industry I'm aware of that can have worse and worse results year over year yet continually maintain a positive reputation and receive more and more investment and funding without any demands ever being placed on them to deliver measurable, permanent security improvements. The whole thing, from top to bottom, is itself a kind of scam.
Ultra common. My mother in law fell for one: only 350 EUR but still...
I confiscated her Windows laptop and had her buy a Chromebook.
Most private Windows installations are security nightmare where a single click on "Yes" installs malware with admin rights: some things just never change and that's why so many people get scammed.
A Chromebook with the DNS set to 1.1.1.3 [1] goes a long way to protecting grandma...
[1] 1.1.1.3 is CloudFlare's anti-malware+anti-porn DNS: I know, I know, it's CloudFlare and some here don't like them... But I actually like CloudFlare, especially their stock I bought @ 48 USD so now I root for them!