If you’ve been reading all of our coverage of the NSA debacle on your shiny Windows laptop that you bought online, you already know it’s been quite possibly hacked by the NSA.  If you’re reading our site on your nifty iPhone, that’s also probably hacked.  With all this craziness, what’s a person to do?  Quite frankly, you can start by installing Linux.

Linux is intimidating to a lot of people because they’re used to the absolute, total dumbed-down-ness of Windows.  Hidden files and settings?  No, Joe User, you don’t need to see any of that.  We’ll take care of all that for you.  You just point and click all the pretty boxes, and look how integrated everything is!  What Microsoft doesn’t tell you is that Windows is absolutely FULL of security holes, and updating all your patches doesn’t really help nearly as well as they tell you it does.  You can check out the Wildlist if you want to see the monthly data for what’s out there, but the bottom line is, Windows isn’t safe.  As far back as September 2012, Symantec was trying to warn folks that Windows 8—in spite of Microsoft’s repeated pats on the head and “it’ll be ok” platitudes—was a big pile of security fail.  [Full disclosure: Symantec, for the uninitiated, sells security software.]

What’s so great about Linux?  A lot, it turns out.  It’s open source, first of all.  Open source means that the code is available to anyone who wants it.  That means not only do you get all of its awesomeness for free (or a small donation if you choose to support the community), but it also means that coders and programmers the world over and inspect the code, add to it, and make it better.  It’s a self-policing community that takes a lot of pride in not only putting out solid work, but in privacy and security as well.  The end result is a very stable operating system that doesn’t give you blue screen of death, doesn’t really get viruses, and is a lot safer for you to use in terms of anonymity and privacy because it has (FREE!) tools available that make it nearly watertight.

Open source also means that there are many different kinds of Linux, and users can choose from widely varying versions, all of which are advancing faster than Windows.  If you buy another laptop with Windows, how many choices do you really get?  You get whatever Microsoft says you get…NSA backdoors and all.  With Linux, you control the security, the programs within it, and really every possible facet of the operating system.

“But none of my Windows programs will work on Linux!”  Actually, that’s not quite true.  Much of the time, programs offer a Linux version too.  If they don’t, there is either an open source version that will work just fine with all your files (such as Open Office), or you can always run a Windows emulator on Linux, which means you can do things to Linux that will allow you to run a Windows program in it.  All of this while running on half the computer power Windows requires. How often do you have to reboot?  How often does IE crash or Firefox close with errors because of the operating system it’s running on?

“But Linux is so hard to learn!”  Again, this is not really true, but it’s one of the false claims that Microsoft has gotten busted making.  A few years ago, Microsoft got caught lying about Linux in UK ads.  The truth is, back in the day Linux WAS complicated.  In recent years, however, it’s become easier to set up and use than Windows.  This guy explains two different scenarios: setting up Linux, and setting up Windows.  Turns out that Linux “just works,” whereas we all know Windows…sometimes doesn’t.  Hunting for drivers and setup files can get old very quickly.  There’s a reason one support site is called BleepingComputer.com.  Linux isn’t exactly like Windows.  There’s a bit of a learning curve.  But it’s a pretty intuitive OS, and there is an incredible amount of documentation written by the community to help you learn and grow.  It’s in the community’s best interest to help each other, and they do.

If you’re ready to make the switch—or at least get more information—check out Ubuntu Linux.  All you need to install it is a blank CD or a USB stick.  If you still can’t see a reason to move to Linux, here are ten.  Bottom line is this:  If you’re serious about taking back your privacy, there’s really only one option.  If you decide to stick with Windows, enjoy the knowledge that every time you type…someone’s watching.