As a user aren't you essentially forced to this to have a usable desktop experience? I mean, sure, there is a boundary.. but it's drawn rather carelessly around the entire stack.
You have to switch to your admin account for some settings and maybe half the time you are installing new software, but everyday stuff now works well without privileges
There are still too many applications that unnecessarily require admin credentials to do something (I'd love the system to report exactly what the app is trying to do) but it is a lot better than it used to be
Specially when it asks me if I should allow HP printer driver to download new updates. No thanks I'll keep the minimal driver Mr. HP.
Basically this is the default way Linux works (not entirely the same but similar enough) with sudo. And the way that every corporate IT department runs windows.
Another advantage is that if some malicious app tries to access something it shouldn't you will immediately know as the admin pop up will trigger.
Kinda sorta. Here "not entirely the same but similar enough" means "doing the one major thing that Linux does not force you to do", namely, creating a whole separate user account just so that MS can make the braindead claim that a security boundary isn't being crossed when you enter admin permissions from an Administrator account. On a Linux system you only need to create one user account, and put it in the sudoers group, and Linux then properly treats every attempt to do something with sudo as crossing a security boundary and acts accordingly.
I think you are very confused about what a Linux user actually has to do--and not do.
> create a second unprivileged account and log into that instead of root.
No, you create one account. The root account doesn't have to be created. It's automatically there, built into the system. On Windows, you have to explicitly create two separate accounts, one with Administrator privileges and one without.
Correct, but you're missing the point. There's practically no difference between Linux and Windows when you need to escalate privileges, except having to enter credentials for another (privileged) user than your current (unprivileged) user. The security boundary is there and the user experience is basically the same. Everything else is just nitpicking.
There's not a lot a typical user does that requires admin. For the odd software that breaks Windows' conventions, it's usually enough to install it outside of Program Files.
Of course with the push towards Microsoft accounts for login, this might soon be difficult.
Meaning, in a user's home directory somewhere? That's even worse, because now that user has write access to the executables. Which makes it even easier for some nefarious piece of software to pwn those executables, since they don't even need to get root permission.
You cannot compromise an executable run without permission and magically get Administrator or some higher privilege level without another exploit. Sure that specific user's data may be compromised but in the end the system remained secure.
Also keep in mind Microsoft by default has a ton of sandboxes and checks on those applications which will likely get caught as well should that compromised application try to access something it shouldn't.
I don't personally know of a mass security event involving Windows that cannot be chuaked up to failing to implement security updates. Sure Microsoft has some massive security issues but in general their track record isn't as bad as people try to make it out as.
There are enough reasons to hate windows without making up new ones.
The recent global ClownStrike outage?
If you aren't entirely in the know crowdstrike had a very similar issue a few months before with Redhat distros so was that a Redhat issue?
If you meant "caused by", then maybe use that instead of "involving"? ;)
I'm not that worried about that, as the executable won't get admin privileges without some exploit, so I don't go there. But it's an option.
Can't you just install it at the user level? https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/windows#_user-setup...
Sure, if you want your ordinary non-admin user to have write access to the executables, which makes it a lot easier for some malicious piece of software to hack them since it no longer needs to get root permissions.
As if non-admins have no way to create a new executable and run those instead? Windows has a million ways to run code, both visibly and invisibly. Why would malware prefer to trash an executable that the user relies on for daily work and risk revealing its presence so quickly?