Why Java is More Secure than .Net

Do you know why Java is more secure than .Net?

Dot-net is Microsoft dominated. A quarter of all PCs are still on Windows XP because their operating system releases are hit and miss, and dot net is a major infrastructure.

I heard Java was better because it is IT agnostic -- that's when it doesn't care what device or hardware uses it.

You can run .NET on a Solaris machine, it is just unlikely to be used there. Microsoft tends to lock up their stuff with Windows Servers, Windows OS and Office.

MS Office is about the only good thing they've made.

Java benefits from the broad user community because you have more people testing it in many different environments and configurations. They find security holes and bugs faster.

Do the bugs get fixed faster?

Fixed code gets put in libraries, and everyone gets access to them via code libraries. This can certainly be faster than waiting for the next Windows security patches.

I've read a lot of criticisms of dot-net developers.

Dot-net has a lot of drag and drop interfaces used to create Sharepoint sites. You get dot-net developers who are a lot less expensive than high end developers.

More people working on it should improve the quality. Or you have lower end developers on Sharepoint freeing up engineers to work on security holes.

You end up with drag and drop web interface developers trying to use that technique to solve all their problems.

What works for a web interface probably won't work for a data flow.

You do end up with Sharepoint and dot-net developers in general trying to use the limited methodology to fix everything. And because they are using a limited framework, their solutions are convoluted messes that add more entry points than they fill.

That leads to inferior products.

Java is used in so many applications, on so many servers and embedded so many other places that its security is regularly tested and verified. And unlike Microsoft, people who find the holes eagerly and readily share their findings and their fixes.