A recent Free Software Magazine article points out that using Linux protects you from potential governmental spying or hacking in two ways. First, Linux is open-source, so it would be extremely hard to inject a backdoor into its code. Second, since Linux is far less commonly used than, say, Windows, a governmental organization is far less likely to target it. All of this logic basically also applies to ordinary hackers, too. (And if you don’t think that governmental hacking will be an issue, it will almost undoubtably be an issue in some major country in the next few years.)

The open-source part is important, too. In most cases, the big deal is that you are using a product that have is out of the mainstream. Basically, if you run Windows, you have a thousand cannons firing you at all times. If, however, you run Linux or another less common operating system, you may only have a few or no cannons firing at you.

This is not to say that using the mainstream operating system is always a bad thing. In addition to having a thousand cannons firing at you, you also have the aid of everyone around you, rather than being an outlier fending for yourself. This is equivalent to Windows being the “standard,” and, thus, almost always supported.

While Linux being a less common operating system is often played as a disadvantage, it is really neither a disadvantage nor an advantage. It just depends. Do you want the support of the group with the cannons firing at you or do you want to be on your own, but with little chance of being hit?

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