UAC and Linux

Layback Bear · 13 Jan 2013

UAC is not the answer to all security problems. It was designed to assist in security. In my opinion it is just a small let me try and help program, thats all. Some infection do get around it and some don't. That is why one must have other security programs to assist. No one thing or program can protect your computer. I have 3 active programs for security.
1. Microsoft Security Essentials
2. Malwarebytes Anti Malware Pro
3. Windows 7 built in Firewall
I also use a router and several on demand programs to backup my active programs. Just to check and see if anything got by my active programs. Their is no one shot program or tool that does it all. With all this I just the other day got some add ons to both I.E.9 and FF for donating to some sort of charity and a coupon gadget. I don't know how they got there but with my checking with the on demand programs I got rid of them. It's a never ending struggle to keep this crap off a computer.

M4dn3ss · 14 Jan 2013

Sorry can't remember, it was too long ago.

Which running as a standard user be better than running as an admin with UAC? Or is the latter just the same as standard but with a yes/no prompt instead of requiring password?

Alejandro85 · 14 Jan 2013

In theory, it should be the same, but subtle differences exists. The yes/no prompt vs the user/password is the major one, I think it at least prevent an easy "yes to all" on the user, but also provides some kind of isolation since the elevated program run under a different account than the logged in user (this has some bad side effects too). And if for any reason you ever had to disable UAC, you're still a non-admin.
That's the setup I prefer, it has its annoyances, but a bit more security is a good tradeoff I think (but try it yourself and see if that suits you). It's not a silverbullet and bad things can still happen.