I'm looking to install a virtual machine and since Hyper-V is not available for my Windows 10 production version I'm forced to decide between VirtualBox and VMWare. VMWare looks much more modern and new while Virtual Box has a very old and 'sketchy' looking website. I was always under the impression that VirtualBox is better and safe for anonymity. Is it safe to install it though, and is it possible that VirtualBox could be spying on their users?
Asked
Active
Viewed 2,090 times
1 Answers
5
Both VirtualBox and VMWare are safe, reputable hypervisors. A website that looks "old" is not an indicator of malice, and sometimes the most reputable websites look very old indeed. VMWare has more closed source components than VirtualBox, which can make it less trustworthy as a result of a closed design. Neither of them are going to actively spy on you, though. If you want to really be sure, verify their PGP signatures, if they have them. They are likely provided on their download page.
You should know, however, that your operating system may end up writing sensitive information in RAM to swap space on your disk, so using a virtual machine for anonymity is not always the best idea if you don't know what you're doing. Furthermore, any virtual machine software can contain bugs that could allow the guest to break out. As long as you keep them up to date, along with the rest of your operating system and the guest running in the VM, the chances of that are minimal.
forest
- 64,616
- 20
- 206
- 257
-
Thank You, I think I'm going to go with VirtualBox from your advice. – R.Peter Jan 12 '21 at 14:34