[YoshiRulz]

PuTTY is (or was, in the years before WSL) the go-to SSH client for Windows. If you're a Windows user getting onboarded at a job / uni class which uses Linux machines, installing it is the first thing you'd be told. The laptop in question would obviously have a terminal emulator and SSH client pre-installed, but a Windows user wouldn't think to look for them, and they might not even know that SSH exists outside of PuTTY or that it's a separate concept to the terminal.

[glitchc]

Sure, I'm well-aware, and am also aware that someone familiar with a GUI-based way of doing something on one OS may seek the same, or similar, GUI on another (new) OS. It's a familiar anchor in a sea of unknown, a natural thing to do for most users.

I still don't follow the evil grin. Is the apt package some kind of malware or trojan?

[frollogaston]

It's nothing evil, it's just Putty for Linux, and they say why you might want it. Mostly for people coming from Windows, but supposedly it can also deal with raw sockets that OpenSSH can't.