would it be safer to run Knoppix live on a pc with no harddrive when doing online banking,or having knoppix installed on a harddrive and doing online banking?Windows os is not an option because it to unsafe,and I have read and seen so many breaches.so im trying to figure out a way thats safer.Not 100% safe(there is no such thing),but safer.I know when you use the knoppix live over the net with no harddrive that info can be transmitted over the net,but im trying to find good evidence of safer surfing when using online banking.I have a online business so i need to do this.

I would have thought it would be a pain to have to reconfigure your firewall, security settings etc everytime you boot with a knoppix live CD, it would probably be safer to have a correctly configured hard drive install instead. If anyone is going to get in and read stuff from your computer....whether it is stored on hard drive or ram disk makes no difference. It would be better to keep your browser and system up-to-date with security patches and upgrades with a hard drive install than using an out-dated version on a live CD. Saying that, if your computer does get hacked/cracked/infected then a simple knoppix reboot should bring your system back clean as a whistle. Knoppix-STD or PHLAK may be better choices for a more secure live distro. Overall I would say go for a hard drive install, if you're really paranoid about security maybe go for something like TrinityOS or Open/Net/Trusted-BSD. http://www.knoppix-std.org/ http://www.phlak.org/ http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~dranch/LINUX/index-linux.html#trinityos http://www.trustedbsd.org/ http://www.openbsd.org/ http://www.netbsd.org/

If you're extremely paranoid, check out the recently released OpenBSD-based Anonym.OS liveCD. 3Dave has a point about liveCDs not being that much safer from physical access attacks, but extracting data from the ramdisk isn't what I'd worry about. Setting a screensaver password and denying unsolicited incoming network access mitigates the risk of that sort of attack. I'd be more concerned about hardware keyloggers or the livecd(s) being swapped for trojaned versions. All things considered, I think I'd prefer a hardened hard drive installation over a non-hardened liveCD, and a hardened liveCD over a hardened hard drive install, but only if the liveCD is reasonably current and the provided versions of the application(s) of interest (Firefox in your case) don't have known security issues.

really good advice.thanks!.I read and liked the OpenBSD-based Anonym.OS liveCD.I downloaded the iso,and burned it to my cd.I then set my cdrom to first boot,and the cd detects all the hardware,and stops at command like flashing cursor.I keyed in help,and it gave me a list of options,and i tried all of them,but i couldnt get to a desktop area.I tried a knoppix cd i have,and no problems.I have a dlink router hooked up that i forgot to mention,so i hope this helps me a bit with the security part of it when using a live cd,or installing one of the safer installs.im not a pc expert,so im trying to find what would be best security for me to help me with online banking,business trasactions.Im not parnoid,but when you use windows os,and read,and hear of all the horror stories,then it makes you think twice.

"...to help me with online banking,business trasactions..." Bear in mind that some banks require you to run specific software to allow you to perform certain transactions etc....check what platforms it will run under.