Depends on what we mean in this case by "security", what kind are we after, what is the threat?
Secure programming complements but does not replace digital hygiene and good opsec. You are not less likely to be caught out by an ISP's filters if you are downloading e.g. a top Hollywood movie from a public tracker, the same way it won't stop you from clicking on a phishing e-mail. OpenBSD is very resilient against all sorts of attacks -- like, the packet filter may block hacking attempts on your machine or sshd might thwart brute-forcing attacks, it might have patches and mitigations against various common exploits... but it won't stop a scammer that you supply data to, or a phishing campaign where you sign in to things where you are not supposed to. There will be some great mitigations where e.g. OpenBSD will just kill your browser if a malicious website wants to go poking where it is not supposed to (e.g. I have had it shut down ungoogled-chromium when I was -- legitimately -- trying to use Webserial, which was a step too far for the pledge subsystem I think), so there may be _some_ protections in web browsing, depending on what browser you use etc. And if configured well, pf will block e.g. port scanning if your IP is exposed to the public via BitTorrent. But it won't replace the user. On Sun, 07 Dec 2025 17:02:22 -0500 Katie <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello all, > > I saw an interesting comment about OpenBSD on a Youtube video, and > was wondering if someone could help this person? > > Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2VsjV-qwRM (Title: Most > Secure, Private and Usable Linux Distro) > Comment: "I have a question. Is an OpenBSD desktop anymore secure > than a normal (non-security oriented) Linux distro (Debian, Ubuntu) > for browsing the web, torrenting, banking?" > User: msherman77 > > It's about 10 comments down. > > Best regards, > Katie >
