Ummm, no I'm not wrong. It is true that a single server is more beneifcial to virus writers than a single pc. However, there are many times more pc's than their are servers. Furthermore, a pc is typically a less watched item as most consumers are stupid and have no idea how to protect themselves, whereas servers generally hve active admins who watch all actions like a hawk and are setup much more securely in the first place. That alone is the reason I can charge $35/hr to fix slow and corrupted pc's as a side gig. Usually all I have to do is run a few programs to clean up thier mess and charge them for 2hrs work.

In the end a regular computer is by far a better target and those are nearly all Windows platforms. So, again, *UNIX based computers are just not targeted en masse. If they were, you would be crying the opposite.

Just as every new technology is hacked fairly quickly regardless of the protection put in place, so can any OS. Given enough time and diligent assholes any OS can be a hotbed of viruses. 

On the ongoing advice of my friends, I installed Ubuntu on my new laptop (came with Vista) so far I'm hating both and want XP back.
MY biggest issue is that Ubuntu fails to work with my sound card. I invested several hours in researching and trying different things and got it to work, then it stopped again a few days later. I do not have time to bother with it. Also I hate having to research how to do a lot of basic stuff. I do not find it user friendly, at all. I would not recommend either OS, but Vista is still easier for new users to fumble through.

If you're charging $70, to clean up spyware and viruses, you're a shady business man. It's not even a 30 minute job, let alone an hour. The sad thing is, idiots will pay that because they have NO idea. :(

You know this how? I have removed a lot of viruses and malignant programs for my friends. Sometimes it is only a 3 second matter other times it can take me hours...Than again I don't use virus scanners unless I can't identify it. When you run a virus scan it can take up to 3 hours depending on the PC to do a scan and if you don't you are usually working on a very screwed up computer in windows explorer will mostly be usuing 99% of resources by the time I hear of it or in macs that damn colorwheel keeps spinning. It isn't just a matter of disabling the virus but to remove it and restoring old files that were changed and resetting internet settings that have been hijacked. So what you are telling me rendo is that in 30 minutes you can identify all of the viruses and spyware a PC may have on it...then you are able to identify the files for removal and go through the process of removing them including process killing or flesh them out in a command prompt enviroment. In windows you are able to identify the registry keys it changed that fast? or are you just talking about running Ad-aware, Hijack this, AV scan from boot? Either way it is going to take at least an hour....Or what you don't charge for your time while on the job./... I call that a crappy business man.

Obviously you don't understand. I'm aware it takes TIME to do these things. However, the amount of ACTUAL labour involved isn't 2 hours. It's 30 minutes. You run the scan, you walk away. You're not doing anything, the program is. I have standards and ethics when it comes to charging people for labour. I charge for the amount of time I NEEDED to fix it. While those scans are running, I work on something else and put REAL time into it, not made up time to rip people off.

rendo, that's why I prefer charging per service, not per hour. A spyware removal is $X no matter how long it takes, a hard drive format + OS reinstall is $Y no matter how long it takes. But still, prices do not and should not reflect ONLY the labor costs, but the expertise as well. It takes practice to become good at computer repair, and not everyone can do it. You deserve to be paid for your skill. There's an old adage where a plumber visits your home, fixes your leak in 5 minutes, and charges you $100. You say, "You're charging me $100 to twist some valves and tighten a nut?" He replies, "Yes sir. $3 for twisting the valves, $2 for tightening the nut, and $95 for knowing which valves to twist and which nut to tighten."

Ok, well, before anyone goes calling anyone else unethical, I dont believe it is in this case. 

If you have to make a house call and travel to a clients premises because their computer is crawling, and have to run a cleanup application that takes 30 minutes, its still 30 minutes of your time. 

If a virus scan took 30 and a spyware scan took 30 I would charge an hour. Otherwise what? You would be charging them for 5 seconds that it took you to start the software and click ok a few times? I dont think so. 

I used to work for a consulting firm that sent me around the city to do various things. We would charge the client time between when I got in and then when I left. Its up to the tech to make the most of the time and try and be as efficient as possible but I dont think anyone subtracts time because they have to wait for a tool to do its thing.

It isn't just that entroper. Each minute you spend at one place is another minute you could be at another. For instance If I was a tech and someone arranged for me to head over and build them a PC from scratch and it took me 2 hours to get it down with OS install and program installation and that was 1.5 hours labor you still charge 2 hours because you may have had 2 virus removals during that time you could not do.

In my profession I charge by the time it takes for the PC to get the job done or the amount of time I have to sit around and do nothing. Whenever I get called to go on the road I charge 8 hours a day minimum even if I do absolutely nothing and order room service all day because I am currently tied up.

 So even if you were to charge a set price for spyware/virus removal you would still charge more than the minimum as a good not shady business practice. You say it is 30 minutes actually labor I would say charge 1.5 hours work for it at $35 an hour that is $50. One job may take you lesss time than you charge and another job may take you a lot more time than you charge and it should all balance out. Which is fair especially for on site and on top of that if you were to do it in your spare time like me that means 2 hours of not going out doing anything just to make sure it runs fine after you are done. I don't charge friends but I do charge friends of friends. It can get pretty cumbersome especially if only do it on the side.

BTW Best Buy charges I do charges $299/hour for virus and spyware removal if you bring it in and $349/hour for on site. 

It's different if you're GOING to their place to do it, or if you do it at your shop or your home, because that is labour plus actually having to stick around and do things and being unable to do other things. If you're at your shop or place and doing it, you can work on other machines, or do anything else you want while things are progressing.

Everyone knows 20 minutes is charged as an hour as most labour workers do that. I'm not saying short change yourself that way, I'm saying if you're doing something that doesn't take up all your attention, you shouldn't be charging for the time it took to finish, but the time you put into it. Start scan, takes 3 hours, repair/dispose of infected files, carry on with other steps. You charge an hour, not 3.

Let me explain this to you a bit better: of course viruses exist on Linux, or I should say ATTEMPTS at viruses, but, listen well, NONE OF THEM WORKS! There's even a HOWTO on making Linux viruses. However, it says from the start that the viruses just won't work at all.

Everyone of the viruses you listed just don't work. Notice they're all non-resident virus. Do you know what this means? This means that for your virus to work, you have to specifically login as root, make it executable, and then execute it every time you want to be infected. How retarded is that? And the worst thing is that you cited them without even understanding that you were disproving your point.

Let me tell you: typing 'rm' and erasing all of your directory will make more damage than these so-called viruses.

Even worse, even if I did the first step of making these things executables on, say, my wife's account, it still wouldn't work AT ALL. Because your virus will be hard pressed to find any ELF file on my wife's account, and even if it did, it would never be used anyway.

To show your ignorance even more, you talk to me about clamav. Of course I know clamav, and of course there are antivirus on Linux, I said that specifically. I also said they are not for Linux, but rather for virus infected data that may pass through a Linux OS, which is for now completely immune to them, and could land on a Windows OS. ClamAV purpose is basically to protect Windows OS, NOT Linux. Go read what the purpose of clamav is and try to understand instead of saying nonsense. Clamav is not a resident antivirus like there are on Windows, for the simple fact that it is NOT necessary. And I know that perfectly well as I use it at home and installed it in big enterprises for their mail proxies, where it is used in majority, to, guess what, protect Windows OS.

And no, there are no antivirus for Linux, meaning no resident Linux antivirus like you find on Windows, not even NOD32 does that, it's just useless.

And stop your BS, there was no Unix viruses in the 80s. Perhaps you thought of worms (related to daemons, not to OS), but you're so clueless about the matter, you couldn't understand the difference.

But I'm not surprised you're so clueless, it goes with the rest of what you said. I meet countless clueless people like you in IT.