eli5: Why do computer operating systems have lots of viruses and phone operating systems don’t?
In: 5085
Almost 300, none of ’em could explain to a 5. Here’s me try:
Imagine you have a really big business, and you’re the client of this business. At the building of this business you can get in a salesperson and ask for whatever that business sells. Surely they won’t let you get in their warehouse, or offices, or staff kitchen. On smartphones all you can do is get close to a salesperson and say you want to buy something and that’s it, in PCs OSs, if you ask them they will simply let you do whatever you want to in that business, use the staff bathroom, use staff kitchen, get in administrative offices, whatever. Sure they have a boss? Surely but in this context Android/iOS don’t have a boss (and this is where “rooting”/”jailbreaking” a device gets a place) and PCs OSs usually the client is the boss.
On windows PCs the boss is that user account control settings that makes the background dark and everyone simply clicks yes and on Mac sudo is the boss. Whatever software you use and viruses are the client, the building the operating system.
Viruses for Android/iOS are way less available cuz it’s not worth try to fool the salesperson to get to do what you want to, on PCs you can simply expect the client say “yes”.
To fit a real world situation on a computer “reality” is tough, this is not really accurate and don’t fit in many situations that would occur in PCs.
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