The other day a friend came to me with a problem, he had been surfing the internet for information about the conficker worm virus. As he misspelled the name as configer virus he didn't find a lot of real information on this virus. What he did find was a lot of links to site which were indicated by google as harmful to your computer.

Anti-virus companies play a losing game. Casting their nets wide, they catch common, malicious viruses and worms (known to the industry as “malware”), but it may take days before their software updates can prepare your computer for the next attack. By then it could be too late.

Whether you think free software is about what you can get without paying, or the more philosophical concept of freedom doesn't really matter, Linux author Linus Torvalds told LinuxInsider. The software will continue gaining ground no matter how people feel about it.

China may no longer be able to use proprietary software from the United States without paying, which is great news for GNU/Linux and other Free software

One of the people who switched to Ubuntu Linux recently, phoned me asking what kind of antivirus they should have installed. Quite frankly, I’ve never given that a thought. I’ve used Ubuntu for some time and have never had any virus issues, ever. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that Linux is impervious to a computer virus, rather I’m suggesting that (currently) it’s not an issue. As a matter of fact, I did a bit of research and found out that there are viruses, worms and malware that effect our Linux based systems.

Like other Unix-like computer operating systems, Linux is widely considered as secured and well-guarded against computer viruses. Its multi-user environment makes it extremely hard for malware to gain root access to the system files.Though malicious programs that are specifically written for Linux are really small in number, there is still a possibility for them to cause some harm.

Viruses. They happen to almost everyone. If they don’t happen to you, it’ll be your cousin Stan who get joins the malware-of-the-month club, and you’re the only person he knows who can fix a computer. The problem is, things are so screwed up that Windows won’t even start properly.

Staying focused on one simple principle clears away any confusion: creative artists have a right to be paid. If we enjoy a piece of recorded music, a book, drawing, photo, movie, and the condition of owning a copy of that work is paying for it, then not paying for it is stealing. Legally it is copyright infringement, but I call it stealing, just like shoplifting or any petty theft.

"Well what do you know? Microsoft seems to be gaining ground with their "patent protection" scheme. But what if they discover they've only bought a few bricks of fool's gold?"