Usually when the media reports about computer viruses, they are this dark and threatening thing, that will seize and lock up your computer, demand ransom payments, or otherwise delete and destroy your files. Some news reports also suggest that after you get a virus, your computer hardware will be forever destroyed, although that’s pretty uncommon. In most cases, a damaged boot-sector can be re-written using a boot disk. Spyware is often lumped in with computer viruses — some of it is spread in a viral fashion, but more commonly installed by somebody allowing remote access to their computer to an untrusted party.

The truth is that computer viruses aren’t that scary if you use commonsense — something I’ve always believed and have been confirmed based on my research. Many computer viruses are just nuisances rather then harmful. Few viruses go after Linux desktop computers, as virus makers prefer more popular platforms like Windows or Mac OS X. Despite the advertising, hackers most likely aren’t trying to take over your computer — but do keep your software up to date to ensure you aren’t running buggy software that can make you a target.

Linux developers tend to patch up security bugs and holes after they are discovered, which makes it more difficult to hack and propagate viruses in. The permissions model in Linux is stronger then Windows, and it’s more obvious when your elevating something to root in Linux then Windows. Plus, Linux is fast and easy to update with apt-get and there are large software repositories from official sources, so you are rarely downloading programs or files from insecure servers on the Internet. But mostly Linux’s security comes from less then 2% of desktop computers.

Windows is more of a wild card, but even on the operating system, you are unlikely to get spyware or a virus installed on it if you use commonsense and keep your system up-to-date. The built-in Windows Defender is pretty good, especially for a very light Windows user like myself. They’ve fixed the Excel Macro Virus issue in recent years with better permissions, but I know I’m still very careful on what I download and use on Windows. And I would never let anybody remote access my computer, although I do have TeamViewer installed for work — but only with trusted connections of IT department do I run that app. I also keep an eye on the process viewer, logs, and try to be an informed user of Windows, although I don’t like how hidden so much of settings in Windows.

One thing I didn’t know much about was how secure Android is on my phone. Android seems to hide the guts of how operating system works. I really don’t like the Android operating system, but I often think that’s my only real choice as Linux for phones is under-developed and not well suited right now for phones. Fortunately, it seems based on my research that there are relatively few cellphone viruses at this point, although they are certainly possible to be written and some exist that get around Android permissions. Most of them come from outside of the Google Play store, and they aren’t widespread in United States. But that’s something to watch out for in the future.