Developers talk a lot about “immutability.” Outside the technical world, it usually means something negative: unmoving, inflexible, and entrenched. However, in the technical field, these features ...

The computer's master control program. When a computer is turned on, a small "boot program" loads the operating system. Although additional system modules may be loaded as needed, the main part, known ...

What are open-source operating systems? Underpinning an operating system, for example Windows on your PC or Android on your phone, is many, many lines of code. Allowing anyone to inspect the source ...

With cybersecurity threats on the rise and data breaches occurring almost every week, it’s natural to ask: What is the most secure operating system (OS)? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t ...

Today’s operating systems are more sophisticated and feature-rich than ever before, which makes them substantially more useful to the enterprise but also adds to security vulnerability—unless the ...

What's really the most popular operating system? That depends on how you look at them and who's doing the looking. For example, Net Applications shows Windows on top of the desktop operating system ...

Modern operating systems are all far more secure than their historic counterparts, but which operating system is the safest? That somewhat depends on how you use it — no operating system is “safe” if ...

The Strangest Operating Systems Ever Released Windows, macOS, and Linux may dominate the world of home computing, but hobbyists have churned out some truly niche operating systems. Here are some of ...

Today’s operating systems are conceptually upside-down. They developed the hard way, gradually struggling upwards from the machinery (processors, memory, disks and displays) toward the user. In the ...

Zach was an Author at Android Police from January 2022 to June 2025. He specialized in Chromebooks, Android smartphones, Android apps, smart home devices, and Android services. Zach loves unique and ...