How to pitch Qubes OS?

General Discussion
15

Qubes OS elevator pitches:

  1. Were you ever curious but afraid:
    – to click on that link in the email,
    – to open that email attachment,
    – to go to that shady-looking website,
    – to install and run that suspicious program or even a virus,
    – to insert that USB stick from someone untrusted?
    Wth Qubes you do it all securely in a disposable VM and your personal files are safe. The disposable VM has no access to your system and is reset to a clean state upon its reboot.

  2. Were you ever been concerned about opening your personal email (controlling numerous online accounts) in the same browser where you go to random websites? Actually, even when the browsers are different it can be a problem on a monolithic OS!
    On Qubes OS, you open those things in separate VMs, isolated with hardware, not software. It’s often better than physical (air-gap) isolation. Recommended by Snowden.

  3. Are you tired of managing tens of complicated passwords, or using a password manager relying on clipboard security? On Qubes OS, you can save all your passwords as plain text (in a dedicated offline VM) and securely copy them into the necessary fields (in other VMs) whenever needed. No viruses or ransomware will have access to them. You can also combine this approach with a password manager.

  4. Were you ever experiencing that something breaks after an update or after installing some software? On Qubes OS only a virtual machine breaks in such cases, and it can be easily, securely backed up and restored with a few clicks. Even if you forgot to make a backup this time it’s possible to restore from automatic backups, which are preconfigured.

  5. Do you prefer a certain GNU/Linux distribution, but something forces you to use another one, or Windows? On Qubes you can run many Linux distributions at the same time with a unified, simple interface. That important Windows program should also work in the corresponding Windows VM.

  6. Do you feel concerned that some software you must run (or Windows itself) sends telemetry or unknown stuff to some servers outside of your control? On Qubes OS, you have a Firewall with a simple GUI enforcing any rules on any VM.

  7. Did you hear stories that cameras or microphones in your laptop can be switched on remotely by malicious actors without your consent? On Qubes OS, you choose which VM has access to the camera and microphone, or you choose none. The Admin VM has no Internet.

  8. Do you want to be anonymous on the Internet? One of the best modern solutions, Whonix with disposable VM, is available on Qubes OS out of the box. Alternative solution would be Tails, but it’s much less convenient and requires to reboot your system each time.

  9. Are you tired of entering your super-long root password every time you do something? On Qubes, you don’t need a root password at all, because security is enforced on a lower level, level of hardware isolation. Just type sudo and run whatever you need.

  10. Do you feel that your work is not well separated from your personal life on your machine? With Qubes OS, you can have separate, independent VMs for them. You start and stop them independently, they don’t interfere with each other. If one is damaged/compromised, the other one will still be fine. Of course, you can have (much) more than two domains like those with a unified, simple interface; examples: one, two.

8 Likes