The Linux software you can get as a regular user from your typical Linux distributions is absolutely not any more secure on average than your typical Windows software.
I say this as someone who writes application programs on both systems.
I think it’s really debatable whether the Linux kernel is really any more secure than the Windows NT kernel. Linux advocates have pushed the “many eyes, shallow bugs” line for a long time, but high profile lapses seem to really have put the lie to that.
The software itself may or may not be more secure, but acquiring software is absolutely more secure. There’s so much Windows malware people unwittingly download from the internet. Downloading from a distro’s software repository simply doesn’t have that problem.
I think the kernel is more secure due to the philosophy of not invading users space.
And the experience of installing software on Linux and on windows is like day and night. On windows you can install since Windows 10 via the appstore. However you don’t want to do that since most programs are in there with less features. For example vlc the windows app store app has only basic functionality and is really not worth it.
So on windows you install some random exe from the Internet. You usually Google that and click the first link. This will send you to the fake website vlc.de for example. Then you install it and get free maleware with it. You have to watch out if the website is the correct one.
On Linux you go apt install vlc or you Google how to install and get the command. Or you open the software manager and get the vlc app that is definitely the official one.
The Linux software you can get as a regular user from your typical Linux distributions is absolutely not any more secure on average than your typical Windows software.
I say this as someone who writes application programs on both systems.
I think it’s really debatable whether the Linux kernel is really any more secure than the Windows NT kernel. Linux advocates have pushed the “many eyes, shallow bugs” line for a long time, but high profile lapses seem to really have put the lie to that.
The software itself may or may not be more secure, but acquiring software is absolutely more secure. There’s so much Windows malware people unwittingly download from the internet. Downloading from a distro’s software repository simply doesn’t have that problem.
Also, when not using repositories it is much more common to go to the source, like GitHub releases, etc.
I think the kernel is more secure due to the philosophy of not invading users space.
And the experience of installing software on Linux and on windows is like day and night. On windows you can install since Windows 10 via the appstore. However you don’t want to do that since most programs are in there with less features. For example vlc the windows app store app has only basic functionality and is really not worth it.
So on windows you install some random exe from the Internet. You usually Google that and click the first link. This will send you to the fake website vlc.de for example. Then you install it and get free maleware with it. You have to watch out if the website is the correct one.
On Linux you go apt install vlc or you Google how to install and get the command. Or you open the software manager and get the vlc app that is definitely the official one.