Despite wireless hassles I'm encountering with a new kernel, I still endorse the Linux alternative enthusiastically. Not perfect, but still a no-contest IMHO.

Rootkits are evil sods, aren't they? The trouble is (if I've understood right), a competently written rootkit is pretty much undetectable - indeed, I think even the best antiviruses/anti rootkit software can only cope with those in "user space" or whatever it's called. Those at kernel level - and worst, those which infect hardware/firmware - are probably effectively undetectable unless they cause other visible problems.

Thankfully, those seem to be relatively rare. Let's face it, a rootkit hiding in the BIOS chip could effectively be a throwaway - always assuming one discovered it was there. One that got into the hard drive's firmware could at least be ditched with the hard drive.

I think it's difficult to get hardware rootkits on board without physical access to the computer, although I remember a fairly recent Register article said that one of the big security software firms reckoned it was theoretically possible.

With respect to Windows machines and antiviruses - I get the impression that general "safe computing" habits are more important than the antivirus these days.

Now that MS is sneaking goodness-knows-what onto W7 and W8.1 machines with its oh-so-convenient all-in-one updates, it'll be interesting to see how many people stop updating their Windows computers in case W10-style "telemetry" is installed.

Think I'll stick to Linux for now, thanks very much!

(With Avast on the Windows machines for odd cautious experiments - really should try LavaSoft's AdAware some time.)