windows hosting vs linux hosting

[Cassie]

I started on Linux shared hosting when fp ext were allowed on there. Included in the control panel were webmaster options such as forums, guestbooks etc. which were pretty easy to implement.

However, because I use fp ext, I have been moved to windows and these links etc are no longer available. There was some good stuff in there which, had I had time, I would have used. I feel that, through no fault of my own, I now have less options with Windows hosting but pay the same.

One of the things I really need at the moment is a guest book where customers can leave feedback on our deliveries and service. We have a forum which I set up before we had to move and that works well but need something more instant and simple. Frontpage has a guestbook but it is too simple looking and I can't afford the time to try to work out how to configure it better - anyway - everyone tells me not to use fp webbots.

Most of the guest books I have found surfing have ads or cost money. Can anyone point me towards one that doesn't have ads or how I can get to the links from the linux control panel without having linus hosting.

I should add - it need to be simple to configure as I know nothing about databases etc. The forum via the linux control panel was very easy to set up and I would like something just as easy.

[Administrator]

Hi, Fantastico has excluded Guestbook option from the list of scripts one can install. You can check the list of scripts which come with Fantastico from following webpage :- netenberg.com || creating possibilities I will suggest you to open a ticket for our windows support team and ask them to install a good guest boog script on your account which works well on windows servers. They will do the needful and get back to you once your guestbook is installed.

[sysadmin]

Hi Cassie,

You can install the Advanced Guestbook which is a PHP-based guest book script which can be found at proxy2.de. It includes many useful features such as preview, templates, e-mail notification, picture upload, page spanning , HTML tags handling, smilies, advanced guest book codes and language support. The admin section lets you modify, view, and delete messages. It requires PHP and MySQL to work, which of course is provided by both, Linux as well as Windows..

[ThE.BeSS]

I have a Windows Hosting package, and i have heard from friends that windows hosting is not so safe ,Linux is safer.
I like the windows hosting and i had NEVER problems with it ,but i had some problems with file access because its not like in linux so i had to contact the support several times ,then i learned how to change the file access thanks to the great support

[Dan]

That's not correct, both have equal security measures.

[Hexosphere]

I have a Windows Hosting , and i have heard from friends that windows hosting is not so safe ,Linux is safer.
I like the windows hosting and i had NEVER problems with it ,but i had some problems with file access because its not like in linux so i had to contact the support several times ,then i learned how to change the file access thanks to the great support

Security, comes down primarily to the person that's putting it in place, and not by the OS choice.

Security is a process and not a product, and itself has a field all of it's own, though I think what you're possibly referring to is a myth that seems to have come about due to Chinese whispers.

The Microsoft Architecture is notably one of the most used platforms, given that people use it within their workplaces, and also their homes, much above that of linux (though there have been a lot of recent developments in the linux world which mean people are starting to use it more). Some may say that this is the reason that a vast majority of the viruses and worms that float about the internet these days are geared towards the Microsoft platform, which in part may be true, though the real thing here is the way that a Windows machine works. When Windows was first created, it was a single user system, ie that user had access to do everything to that system, windows 3.1, 95 and 98 are examples of this single user system. Along side that, was Windows NT 3.1, NT 4 and 2000, but these were multi-user systems, primarily used in the business world. Microsoft wanted to bring the advantages of Windows NT, and the look and usability of Windows 95 to create a new unified Windows.

This is how Windows XP came about, which in itself is more secure than it's counterparts. The problem lies with the fact that people would need to understand what a multi user system is, and given that would take time for people to get used to, they went along with the idea that the account that it created during setup, was added to the administrators group allowing them the same access that they had when they used to run Windows 98, the ability to install applications, and the ability to change system settings. By far and wide this is one of the worst things that they did, because it meant that without knowing what a multi user system is, people didn't utilise it to it's full advantage, they just carried on as if they were still using Windows 98, but with a new look.

There are 2 types of user account available as standard in Windows XP, an Administrator, and a Limited User account, though most people still today use an Administrator account for their daily activities, such as reading this forum, or reading their emails, instead of using a limited user account, and then only using an administrator account for when they have to perform specific tasks. The other reason that people use an Administrator account by default, is due to bad programming by application writers, that request to be able to write to a system area(Program Files), rather than the user area (Documents and Settings).

This is where the Virus writers use social engineering and the understanding of how people use their systems. For a windows file to be executable, it only needs to have a certain extension, ie exe, cmd, scr etc. Knowing the fact that most people are using an administrator account to perform their daily tasks, means that by sending an email with an attachment in it that appears to be from someone you know, would make you want to look at the attachment to see what it is, and by doing so executes the attachment with administrative rights, which can do anything from deleting your entire hard drive, to installing torjans, which means that they can later access your system for whatever means that they want, and even today, people have firewalls installed that block access coming in, but allow everything out, and those that do warn about outgoing connections, are commonly dismissed by the user under the idea that 'well if it's asking for it, then it needs it'.

In an attempt to fix this, Microsoft created UAC, which is present in Vista, and lo and behold, how many people have got to the point of irritation because of not being able to do something that you were able to do before. This has also forced the bad application code to be re-written, so that it does write to the user area as opposed to the system area.

When looking at the comparison to a linux system, a password for the root account is created during the install, but the account that you create is a standard user account, and as such, everything you do is with a standard user account, and only elevating those privileges when required. It doesn't mean that you can't use a root account to browse the internet, or read your emails, though a vast amount of programs do infact check first to see if you are logged in as root, and if so, won't allow their execution. To be able to achieve the above with a standard user account, you would first have to save the attachment, then you'd have to give it permission to execute (regardless of extension), all before you could run it, which even then, would only effect your user area, rather than the system area.

So when you look at it like this, you can see how one may appear to be more secure than the other, though in reality it's more in the understanding of how to configure it. Windows can be secured in the same way that linux is, it's in the understanding of how to do it that creates the problem. Linux doesn't care if you understand how to do it, as it does it from the outset, Windows on the other hand, doesn't do it from the outset, and expects you to know what you should do - and people said that linux was too difficult to understand.

No doubt people will be able to add / take away from this, though it's just a personal insight into it, hopefully it may help others to understand somethings they didn't before.

[IanSmithISA]

Good morning,

Up until recently I used to leave a Windows 2000/2003 Server behind Windows ISA (Internet Security and Accelerator) at the end of a broadband connection with a static IP address and never had any unauthorised access the server. The logs reported stacks of ftp and SQL Server attempted log ons but none were successfully.

I even ran it without a virus scanner, once a year I would download one and do a scan but never found anything, virus checkers for the server versions of Windows tend to be more expensive than the desktop versions.

In my view part of the reason that Windows servers are much more secure than Windows desktops is that Windows servers don't tend to run potentially dangerous apps such as Internet Explorer with Active X enabled, dodgy downloaded programs and respectable programs that access the Internet but are written by developers (like me) who come from a time when network access is presumed safe.

Security gets weaker over time as third parties add more functionality into their components without explaining it. I mentally downgraded PDF from a secure format when they added Javascript support, if you go to Adobe's site and download the PDF developer's guides you might be surprised at the database access facilities within PDF. They are great when you intend to use them but if you don't trust the document?

On my desktop I do run AVG anti virus but recently picked up something that disabled registry access and CTRL+ALT_DEL. This was just after a installing a respected app that collects its contents over the net, maybe just a coincidence!

Whilst I get Hexosphere's point about not running as admin, I find that I have pretty much no choice, MS Dev Studio has too many tantrums if you don't!


Bye

Ian

[Dan]

Windows Firewall may I add is one of the most intuitive CLI firewalls around, I have to admit that IPTables and CSF are also brilliant.

[Hexosphere]

Whilst I get Hexosphere's point about not running as admin, I find that I have pretty much no choice, MS Dev Studio has too many tantrums if you don't!

Yeah, a classic example of a company where the right hand doesn't know what the left hands doing lol. Just goes to show that even a company such as microsoft themselves are responsible for bad coding practices.

I used to run Windows within a domain environment, and actually agree that in the 8 years i ran it behind ISA server, I never had anything. Though I used to have a domain wide adminstrator account, as well as a standard user account, the same as the rest of the family, if applications needed installing / work needed doing on the systems, I logged in with the admin account. When i was browsing the internet and using email, i used my standard user account.