if you mean the most secure desktop? then linux is not. not by a long shot. use windows.

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/security-privacy-advice.html#desktop-os

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html

if you mean most most free, linux it is. personally I use linux.

To have the most secure machine possible, you might need a hardened kernel but you absolutely need to have SELinux (or equivalent) rules set up.

The easiest way to have a go at this would be to install OpenSuSE (any version will do, they all ship with SELinux ootb) and follow guides on how to setup SELinux permissions.

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Security is an insanely broad topic. As an average desktop user, keep your system up to date, and don’t run random programs from untrusted sources (most of the internet). This will cover almost everyones needs. For laptops, I’d recommend enabling drive encryption during installation, though note that data recovery is harder with it enabled.

what i did after install mint, enable firewall, disable vnc, ssh ,rdp ports. install opensnitch, install pihole

https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/linux-security-guide/

There’s plethora of resources if you want to make your Linux install even more secure than the defaults (so-called “hardening”)

As others have said, Linux Security is a very broad topic. But the main thing is keeping your system updated, only install packages from your distro’s repositories, install a firewall and don’t install anything you don’t need should go a long way :)

For example, i use Alpine Linux as a desktop OS. This means i only install packages through apk, from the Alpine repositories. I run apk update and apk upgrade commands every friday. I use Flathub for most desktop software which i also update weekly. (To be even more secure, only install verified flatpak’s). my firewall has no incoming ports open (really not needed on my desktop). And i keep myself updated with the latest news regarding Alpine Linux, and Linux in general. So i am aware of most vulnerabilities as they are published. This is a pretty secure system.

Later on if you want even more security you can start following the CIS guidelines for your favorite distro, but the above should be a good start.

But good security is not just jeeping your system updated, it also means you have good backups in place, in case randsomware hits your system. And then there’s also the monitoring of your system for suspicious behaviour :) But these are far more advanced topics!

One of the tips I’d give is the same for Windows, the best anti-virus is the user to know what he/she is doing. Linux is a better in that regard because it obfuscates very little, unlike Windows.

Also in line with viruses, given how many variants of a base system there can be, unless the virus is compiled in your machine, to my knowledge chances are higher for a virus to fail to function properly, or even at all. A way for a coder to circumvent it would be to bloat the code with system-specific instructions, which would be harder to create and optimize, but if a big enough group in resources take on the challenge, it could potentially be achieved.

On another point, something I expect to become a problem in Linux is that you need the admin’s password, which is pretty much the master key of the system, for way too many things, even to install a web browser or the equivalent of 7-Zip. With scams usually involving social engineering, having the user hand a key from a system that depends mainly on it makes the system far more vulnerable.

Now, given Windows is still the bigger desktop system, scammers and virus distribution still focus on it, but as Linux grows, more ill-intended people may focus on it.

But still, Windows has far less variants, barely anything there uses passwords or more adninistration-oriented safelocks, and is much worse for troubleshooting (and having used most systems from 98FE onward, I also think it’s getting worse), so I’d say Linux still has the advantages in those points I could think of.

I would argue that Linux is inherently much more secure than windoze, simply because of how it handles user space vs. System (root access vs. User access). Also by how transparent its configuration is and how much information is readily accessible detailing how it works and how to adjust things.

However, when talking security for anything above the average user’s browsing needs, it can get very complicated depending on what you are trying to achieve.

Think of it like building something to keep out honest people vs. to keep out hardened, knowledgeable, clever thieves. Obviously the latter is going to take more time and resources to achieve, while the need to keep out more sophisticated bad actors would probably only be needed if you have something they might want.

Here are some suggestions for searching if actual security is your goal. Others can chime in with more things if they want. This is just some topics/programs you can read about to dip your toes in.

• nftables/Firewalld (common firewalls)
• wireguard/openvpn (vpn protocols)
• rootless containers (podman)

Best of luck!

• Set a decently good password (password is required frequently on Linux, so do go overboard with a 40-random-characters-long password, you will regret it)
• don’t install programs or run scripts from shady sources, prefer to install programs from the Software store (package manager and flatpak)
• setup a backup system to regularly copy all your files to a separate storage device. This is the way to protect yourself from ransomware but also user errors! Having the possibility to format your drive, reinstall and restore backup in a 1 hour time span is going to give you the peace of mine you need for exploring and experimenting with Linux

Others have said it before but basically : what is YOUR (not me, not your best friend, nor your colleague, etc) threat model?

To clarify that means WHO is actually trying to threaten your security?

Typical for most people it would be :

• scammers trying to get pieces of your identity or your local cryptocurrency wallet or resources they can use to repeat that on to others.

For some people, like activists or political journalists it would be :

• national actors, e.g. governments, with their surveillance apparatus, who might end up on a list with a set of conditions that would trigger some automated scan to get e.g. Signal logs

For very very few people, say Edward Snowden, who within the previous group actually did trigger some action :

• actual team of hackers trying to hack into their devices

So as you can imagine if you are part of group 1, 2 or 3 then way you will protect yourself is totally different. What you will also have to protect is also different, e.g. if you have no cryptowallet but are traveling you might have to protect your phone physical phone and its data.

So… if you are serious about this, take a cybersecurity class. There are plenty available but how a computer works, software and hardware alike, is precisely what makes them simultaneously powerful and also dangerous. There are plenty of ways to break security (e.g. return oriented programing), plenty of ways that practically impossible (e.g. encryption) due to the very nature of computers (i.e. computational complexity) which IMHO makes this one of the most fascinating topic. Ask yourself come the credit card in your pocket (costing few bucks to make) can’t be cracked by the largest super computers (costing billions) on Earth?

TL;DR: no offense but you don’t seem to be ready for the answer without getting the basics first.

I just want to say that you’re probably worrying too much about it. Of course, there is lots of things one can do to improve security (which the others here are listing dutifully) and it is foolish to just assume that one’s computer is entirely secure, because as a user, you will always have the ability to bypass that.

But there’s a pretty firm consensus in the IT industry that Linux is more secure than Windows. And that the popular Linux distributions are more trustworthy organizations than Microsoft.

So, it’s good to inform yourself, but if you survived on Windows, you at least should not worry about the Linux side of things. It’s more than fine.

Great to hear you’re willing to move to Linux!

Like other comments pointed, there is no such thing as “most secure”. It’s a deep rabbit hole and it’s better in general to assume that any device connected to the internet is at risk. Hell, any storage can be compromised if the entity interested put enough effort into it.

I recommande reading the page on Privacy Guides, it gives a good overview. In general, you should consider your thread model: what is you situation and why do you want security or privacy for?

• Regarding security, I would say for a general case, any modern, popular Linux distro with full disk encryption is probably good enough and as secure as any other OS. I would recommande going with a Fedora Silverblue or an OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, but the more popular Ubuntu or Mint are great as well for new users.
• If you also want “good enough” privacy, you should focus more on the software you are running, and the situation of your data, especially in your usage of your web browser. But that’s a different topic entirely.
• If you actually want more advanced security though, that’s where it becomes difficult/fun. You need to consider what you are trying to protect yourself from, specifically. Virus? Maybe a compartmentized OS like Qubes might be a solution. Physical access to your device? You can get a dead man switch that kills you system disk if your laptop is taken away from you. You want to hide your OS install from a security inspection? You can set a deniable full disk encryption with a facade OS that protect your from a rubber hose attack. Probably many other things exist I am not aware of.

But anyway, if your question is “Is a Linux distro at least as secure as my previous Windows”, the answer is definitely YES imo. And if you want MOAR, it’s gonna be a fun ride!

[edit: and yes, updates! Update you system plz.]

Microsoft being closed source hides their bugs and vulnerabilities. Even when security researchers have sent in reports MS has sat on them due to profit being motive not security, and not taking vulners seriously until the researchers say screw that and publish it.

Linux being open can have all eyes on it, and if there is an exploit, there is a community willing to help ASAP.

On many distros you may have weekly or even daily updates or patches coming through with fixes. A distro like OpenSUSE has various patch and list patch commands that show what security patches are avilailable, their status (critical, recommended) and if it’s needed on your system or not depending on what you have installed. You don’t get transparency on closed source systems.

If you are paranoid about security you can use AppArmor tools or SELinux. AppArmor can be set to learn his an app behaves, then you lock it so the app can’t do new things.

SELinux you set rules for files and folders, so even with remote access an attacker can’t access data if rules don’t allow file listing over SSH etc