Kernel vs user space
Also searched as: kernel · user space · userspace · ring 0 · kernel mode · user mode
What it means
Two privilege levels in your PC. The kernel is the trusted core that talks directly to hardware; user space is where normal apps and games run, fenced off from that core.
More detail
The fence is what stops a misbehaving app from taking down the whole system. Anything that runs in the kernel has deep power and deeper risk — a crash there is a blue screen, and a bad actor there owns the machine. It's the reason "this tool installs a kernel driver" is a sentence worth slowing down for.
The Compy Blackbook holds 174 graded entries like this one, judged against your hardware — and every change it does make is reversible, with the receipt to prove it.
See Compy →