Note :- Read this article without being obsessed with one operating system.
This article will consider two operating systems that have taken our digital life to new height. Windows Xp have greatly enhanced our Desktop life by helping us play thousands of games, helped many programmers to write many applications on technologies like .NET, java, php. Most popular software among all the users are photoshop, itunes, utorrent, small card games, limewire, winamp, audacity, firefox, google earth, skype, msn messanger, yahoo messanger, adobe reader, vlc, Microsoft Office. Among developers software like Visual Studio.NET, dreamweaver, eclipse, netbeans etc. All of us only use some of them as our frequently needed applications. If you are a digital photo studio owner you are concerned with photoshop. If you like getting shared files you consider limewire or utorrent and even some download manager. E.g if you are a programmer your best friends are Visual Studio, eclipse, netbeans dreamweaver etc. If you are a programming student you may consider all of above programming software for learning purpose but when you become professionals you will stick with one and rarely use others. Theme is you use some software always and many reside on your computer because everybody else does the same. If you don't do any digital photo editing but photoshop lies in your computer because everybody keeps it, you are wasting some space. If you have many software installed on your computer and you got caught by some viruses, you waste unnecessary scan time for those software which you don't use frequently. So why not make an archive(zip, tar) of those software and write to the cd/dvd (if it is legal). For software which you must buy in a cd you can always get them into computer when you need them.
What are the ways you get viruses?
a. While surfing the net if you happen to visit any site we like. Some sites eventually will dispose some spyware, viruses to our computer
b. If you borrow some files from our friends computer via flash drive (pen drive).
c. Other pirated stuffs etc
What are the ways you don't get viruses?
a. Don't visit any non trusted sites
b. Don't borrow any files from others' computer
c. Don't install or download pirated stuffs
Is it possible?
Theoretically it might be. But then why are anti-viruses, anti-malware, anti-spyware made for? They advertise to keep us safe from whatever viruses, malware, spyware we may encounter on the internet. Even with all these stuffs why do we get viruses on the computer and our computer acts like a drunken man. The answer is our anti-viruses, anti-spyware, anti-malware are still not aware of new problems that are created daily on the internet. People don't rewrite viruses that have already been detected by anti viruses. And many anti-viruses don't guard all the path viruses may enter into our computer. They have a strategy to sell their stuff. E.g give you antivirus software for free that does only hard disk scanning and don't protect you from different ports, mail, internet etc. Don't you think stuffs like scanning for viruses which take hours even days to finish are just extra burden to our computers. Why do we have to waste so much power on a scanning program that may even slow our games? Why do we have to waste so much Internet bandwidth to wait for latest update for the antivirus, and still the antivirus program keeps on insisting to get the latest version for $XXXXXX and extra feature for $XXXXX. Aren't even the completely free anti-viruses burden for our computer. Can't we just start windows and start playing games, install our favorite software and start work. Can't we just freely go to any site of the Internet to get all the information they give. Actually yes we can. How? Don't install any anti-virus on XP once you are sure there are no viruses on the computer. It may be just after you install XP or after you have just finished scanning all the files on your computer with the latest updated full featured anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spyware and what ever may be.
After that classify yourself with reference to the following categories.
A: You are not obsessed with any operating system. You just want your work done. Still need many windows only software (Visual Studio, Microsoft Office etc) and also browse the web freely (I mean any site without fear of being attacked by viruses). Play lot of heavy games on your computer (hardcore gamer). Program on .NET (programmer specific).
B: You spend a lot of time on Internet visiting sites like facebook, youtube, digg etc and every site you may know. You do very common desktop work like write some documents, listen to music, watch videos, chat on instant messenger, chat on skype. Run programs like utorrent, or limewire/frostwire. Program on technologies other than .NET and write non-microsoft dependent code (programmer specific).
C: You are obsessed with an operating system. You spend a lot of time on the internet, but still cannot leave Microsoft due to programs like Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc. You don't consider an emulator(like wine or crossover) is a better choice to run these programs(even if you use these programs occasionally). You are not a hard core gamer. You are too suspicious what other options might be.
D: You don't have access to Internet. You use your computer to do only desktop related work or for small stuffs. You always use your computer for some dedicated work only e.g Photo editing, Movie Production and don't care about other things. You are happy, your work is done
Solutions:
Option A: You have two options to be virus free.
I.Install Ubuntu(this is the second operating system, which I said earlier) as secondary operating system (dual boot). Boot which ever you require. While browsing web use Ubuntu and while doing other stuffs use windows. Never ever browse the Internet from windows and never ever insert pen drive to your computer while on windows. If you have to do these two things boot Ubuntu. Check every file while on Ubuntu on your pen drive. You can even scan with some antivirus like Avg while on Ubuntu. If you follow these steps you will never have to wait hours for computer scan, slow your game. What ever you need in windows make a list, store somewhere. And boot Ubuntu and download those stuffs.
II.What if you don't want to wait too long for those internet stuffs to be downloaded and have to run some applications on windows. Before you boot back to windows you may want to see if your application is listed on the database of http://winehq.org. If it's there and it's health is good on your version of Linux. You can just install in on Linux and while having the download run that application. Another option is install Ubuntu as an application over an emulator(wubi.exe(comes with the Ubuntu installation cd) or VirtualBox(free)) on windows and do above stuff. Don't leave windows and do what I have listed above. Make sure Windows don't get control over your pen drive before you list it on Ubuntu e.g if it does autorun stop it by pressing Shift while you insert your pen drive. And even another option is search if similar application exists on Ubuntu (System → Administration → Synaptic Package Manager and search the keyword or text like “Install Limewire Ubuntu” on Google . It might be even better and easier than what you have on Windows. If the application sucks there is always windows which you can boot back to run that application.
Option B: Give Ubuntu a try as a dual boot. When you have two operating systems, you can really re-classify yourself. Do you still fall on Option B. If you don't feel comfortable with these change even after two weeks(You should give yourself at least some week). You start remembering some applications that now you cannot leave without. That means you never were in option B. You may jump to option A or C. You will certainly develop some habit on Ubuntu and when you left Ubuntu later you may even be obsessed with Ubuntu and want to come back, who knows.
Option C: Never leave Windows XP / Vista.
Option D: Never leave Windows XP / Vista.
Note for C and D:
Windows is the most Popular Operating System on this Planet. 90% of the world uses it. Everybody makes software for Windows. It plays latest games. It runs MP3 and many movie files out of the box. Even if you find some applications on Linux they might be better supported and available on Windows.
At last.
Windows is the most popular operating system and you should use it. It does everything one would want to do with the computer, but wait....... didn't we start this article to know what are the best options to tackle viruses and greatly enhance your Internet life. You all know what is best for yourself. I just wanted to show you new chapter of available options. From my point of view once I started using Ubuntu I found out it's quite promising. I don't play heavy duty games. I am mostly connected to internet(firefox 3) (spend most of my computer time on internet on stuffs like facebook, youtube, skype, rss reader(Liferea), listen to bbc(Totem, bbc iplayer), listen music on greatest music player(Amarok), run applications like Frostwire, utorrent(best torrent client via wine/crossover), photoshop(crossover 7 professional got it for free download for one day), small games like njam, lbreakout2, mahjongg and many card games, read pdf(Adobe reader), chm files(kchmviewer), watch movies(vlc, smplayer, Totem), watch bbc programs(real player), program on java(eclipse, netbeans) which I mostly got from synaptic and still have 24552 applications on synaptic not installed. Once I started using Ubuntu I left some of my bad habits and now when i got back to windows it's actually now i started to miss ubuntu so I wiped out windows from a branded non-pirated system(I live in a country where people only do piracy when they use windows) and I am still the one that makes Windows Share to 90%. Is there a way to take my share back to Linux?
