I think it's o.k. if people have their complaints against Microsoft. But I can't understand how people do complain AND use the software. If they don't like it or if they think it's not safe enough, they should simply not use it! They CAN buy an Apple Macintosh odr install Linux. If they don't know about alternative OS's, like solanky said, it's THEIR fault, not Microsoft's.

I would recommend either complaining OR using MS software, but not both!

GreetingZ

Now that's a really well written article for sure.. sort of reminded me of Mark Antony speech in Shakespere's Julius Ceasar.. "I come to bury Ceasar, not praise him.. and Brutus is a wonderful guy...!!"

In our every day lives it is not just software that is getting easier to use and the very basics are completely ignored. But, if we look through human history, we'll also notice that as humans, we leave primary learning to people who have thought about primary learning and most of us go about learning from them. For example, when we learn how to drive, all we learn is how to steer, a bit about the pedals, lights and other gizmo switches.. how many of us would go to the extent of learning how to fix the distributor if water got into it?? okay.. may be that was too complex.. How about another example.. most us have used a cart of some kind at some point of time.. but how many of us understand the very basic geometry that goes into making a wheel.. even though we're all taught at school - exactly how to draw, measure and design circular and cylindrical objects.

The miserable bit about life is that the human brain is only equipped enough to take in a cirtain amount of learning.. and for any kind of progress to take place, we as humans (I'm talking about the average person with an IQ of between 90 and 130), have to learn from other's learnings and simplify future work by building on foundations built. As long as the few retain knowledge about how to maintain the very basics - the general populance will progress at an astonishing pace... and ignorance of the basics of each relm will continue to spread. NO, I'm not advocating the spread of ignorance - there's no excuse for not learning as much about everything as possible.

BUT look at it this way. Hundreds and thousands of people across the globe use a microwave oven every day. And the use of a microwave oven is relatively simple - yet - nearly every user makes one critical mistake - they inadvertantly put in some foil which instantly starts to fizzle and burn as soon as the microwave is turned on. The need to learn only comes from making mistakes, and unless a mistake is made, we as humans are not prepared to take things seriously and learn about the basics about anything.

On the software front: I truely believe that MS in its software (and they do have a convenient, easy to use GUI) should have some sort of tracking mechanism where as soon as a person logs on, a scan is made of the person's computer to automatically identify an erring malware and warns the user - proceeds to shut down the internet connection and provide manual instruction to the user on how to get rid of, and further how to prevent the installation of malware/ trojans/viruses... or else - with all the money they have made over the years - just provide a computer scanning service for free that id's and rectifies all malware on computers that use Windows automatically online.

Im not totally sure about this, i think the problem is nothing really to do with software or windows - although i think things could be better. I think the problem 'people like us' have is with normal 'less intelligent' people. [ive put both those things in speach marks becasue im not totally down with the standard of intelligence but thats a different story]

Here is my history as at the moment i am still using windows and have done since 3.1. My parents have always been fastish on getting computers becasue they run a business and they have needed spreadsheets and word processors for a long time. So i would occansionally go on their 3.1 pc and play random free games from PC user magazine free disk. Then i got older and 98 appeared and we got a pc with a cd rom and a modem. The internet was a big novelty at the time and getting that really excited me. After a few more years i got my own 98 pc for games and homework. I still hadnt heard of linux, and barely knew of mac's. A family friend introduced me to programming a few years back [2000/2001ish] and at the same time i got interested in html after finding a book about it in the school libary. I learnt very basic html and coded a few text based games on QBasic on the old 3.1 pc. Crashes were an exceptable park of computing, i had never known different. And at that time i had heard of a virus but i dont think we had a virus scanner.

Out comes xp and some people say its amazing, other people keep on win 98. I got a new sony xp nice looking pc about 2 years ago. The family friend who introduced me to programming comes to stay again and makes me install firefox 1 preview. After he leaves i find out more about open source and i start using open source on my pc quite alot. I also find out that linux can really compete with windows. At the same time i am being driven mad my virus scanning, spyware finding, everyday intense maintenence that windows requires. I'd like to say that although im not a super user i feel that saying it is possible to run windows without getting infected is possible for a good user is not quite right, i really have run every checker - updated all the time and still i get problems.

So now i found out about linux and i got knoppix from a friend that i had recently discovered was in to computers. I was impressed but i had now hard drive space left on my sony pc for an install. This friend of mine is a genius and told me to get gentoo. I dusted off my old win 98 pc and tried. Gentoo really didnt happen so that was that, till i found time to try again. Then this friend found out about ubuntu and sent me the link. I was instantly interested. I got the live cd from an other friend. I installed ubuntu on my old pc about 2 months ago, but it had no network card and we are LANed now. I then cleaned out the old work 98 and installed kubuntu on it as a family pc- it's still bedding in but now im on the way to *nix. I say *nix becasue as my parents it advisor the next computer they buy is gonna be a mac. I did work experience the other week at a magazine, and their mac setup impressed me so much - its perfect for a business.

Other friends of mine have been exposed to computers and had computers at their homes nearly as long and they still arent running enough protection, they cant code anything, they cant set up networks, they dont know what a WLAN is. Im interested and they aren't but they still want to use computer - do their homework and go on the internet.

Most of my friend, if they have heard of linux, think that its incompatible and that macs are impossible to use. The other day i offered to fix my friends pc that had litteraly died from windows. it had had dialers, trojans, everything [even a hack that printed off pages of 'im watching you' until everything was unplugged] The virus deleated system files and windows won't boot again. Its fixable but im not gonna for at least a long time. I started to install Ubuntu on it and even then - even when a usable alternative was on the horizon for a pc that had collected dust for months - my friend almost got angry about me installing not windows - 'we dont want it' - he hadnt even seen linux. Its that mentality that is ruining computing not even the appaling software that is windows. But the only thing we can do as people who know what up is to promote almost militantly linux and tell everyone we know to buy macs.

Thats a load of my mind

To add to that, i'd like to point out that just as in battle the attacker will go for the weakest spot, so it is with windows users. they're the weak spot, so they get attacked the most. but if there wasn't windows to go after, well then, it would be linux or mac who would take the brunt. and because these systems are supposedly "safer", the level of expertise of the one who would be cracking them would be much higher, and most likely the malware would be more sophisticated. All you Mac and Linuxers, just be glad there's Microsoft to attract the attention of most of the masses, otherwise it would be you.
Since we know that most people have no inkling of how to run a computer other than with the windows GUI, isn't it safe to say that if there wouldn't have been any windows we would be in a far less advanced state technologically than we are now? Because whether or not the masses understand how it works, they know how to run it for the one or two things they use it for in their business, and that saves countless man-hours. multiply that by millions of people, and see how far we would be along today without it.



If you use the right programs, and modify XP somewhat to suit your particular whims, it can be just as safe as Linux.

Graffiti, true that Microsoft has attracted more attention to malware, virus and etc. Yet, you must know how Linux, Mac OS X and any UNIX-based systems are built. They are built using the permissions system, where types of programs cannot write or delete any files that it doesn't have permission to. Regular users' accounts don't have write access except for their /home directory. That means the virus, malware and such cannot attack /sys, /usr/bin/, /proc, /opt/, /etc/, /lib/ directories because they don't have that option.

To add to that, NSA (National Security Association) of the US created something for Linux called SELinux, it provides something like FreeBSD's chroot jail, which in this sense stops any any malware and virus running because it terminates it before letting it run. These features are currently UNIX-based features. Distributions like SuSE, Fedora, Gentoo and other major one (except Ubuntu) has this built-in. For SuSE, just change the line on the bootloader selinux = 1, and then SELinux turns on.

The permission system that Microsoft has is easily broken, regular user accounts' permissions have work-arounds that hackers can plant a virus or backdoor.

To attack on Windows' technology, Windows XP is based on a 15 - 20 year old technology that has alot of design flaws and holes. Linux, on the other hand is based on a technology that has been proven to be secure for 30 years. Windows NT, hasn't really improved since it first came out. Windows XP didn't really do anything to address the security. Linux (and other UNIX based distribution) has been improving UNIX's security by adding new features. The chroot jail and SELinux are recent technology to fend off malware and viruses before it actually attacks UNIX based machine.

The Windows GUI (WIN32, or WIN32-64) is familiar to all, yet so is KDE (X11-based). KDE makes a UNIX system to look similar to Windows. It doesn't replace it, but it's sure a good alternative.


That's all I have to say right now. Happy computing!

xboxrulz

yeah, Windows just can't be anywhere near as good as UNIX based OS like osx and linux. microsoft has really complicated basic computing by leaving gaping holes in security to allow spyware, viruses, and other annoyences to hamper the novice computer user.

The following is a recent example or MS barring mono developers from attending there conferance..

http://uk.builder.com/programming/windows/...39265898,00.htm

mono is a porgram that allows .NET appliations to run in linux.

MS are activly trying to stop consumers from learning about the exsistance of alternative products.

Mono is trying to get exposure, but MS simple refused them access.

qwijibow is correct, Microsoft has been "barring" alternative providers since the early 90s and gotten worst during the start of 2000.

xboxrulz

Well my view of things is that if you use windows, either you're already stupid in the first place, you have been brain-washed by microsoft, or you are required to use windows by your job.

I totally agree with the above post, because i never used windows, but due to i need to know it for my exams after less than a year, half year back i installed them, before i used linux and more before i always used amiga os which had everything i needed, the current windows are not so bad as it used to be 4 years ago, so it is usable, i found that if you use windows smart, it can be quite stable, quite.. but with time it gets slower, that is what i am annoyed about, i currently have no choice, but to use it.. as a matter of fact at start it was really hard, but i got used to it and now it is much less stressful.