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FileZilla has its faults, but being adware is NOT one of them. It was one of many victims (GIMP and VLC were others) of third party mirror sites like SourceForge that decided to make some additional money by bundling crapware with downloads, often without the knowledge of the projects involved. Unless you've been sourcing your software from a particularly shady mirror site, this bundling was usually made pretty clear during the install process, such as the screenshot in the link.

At a guess, SourceForge, or maybe some other third party download mirror site with similar practices, and yeah, AFAIK, it's mostly a Windows thing. SourceForge - and others - went through a period of bundling crapware with tools being downloaded from them, and since they were a popular means for small projects to offset bandwidth costs a lot of projects got bitten until they were forced to provide an opt out - and FileZilla the poster child for projects involved. There was an outcry, as you'd expect, but I have no idea which the mirror sites stopped the practice or not because this pretty much killed my use of them for downloads (sorry, small projects!), but I believe most mirror sites that are claiming to be reputable either no longer do so at all, or at least provide projects an opt out.

You can take back some control of Windows Update if you use Windows 10 Pro. You have to use a mix of group policy and the disable update tool from Microsoft: http://techgage.com/article/ta... The two mixed together allows you to selectively install updates while preventing others. It's a little more convoluted that previous OSs, but it can be done. The problem is that Windows will nag you when there is an update, including a full splash screen like a UAC warning saying you have to update. If you are running Home, then yeah, it's all or nothing, disable service or live with constant fear of a failed update.

It's possible that these versions come bundled with less crapware than sourceforge versions

I like it. Beauty is very personal. What they should do is have many different themes and easy to select, so people can choose what they want it to look like.

My issue, and this is not limited to Windows, is the use of the Toolbar. That think is almost always empty. e.g. this oneA pictogram, the name and three small things I can click. The image and the name is not something I need. That leaves the three buttons.

I rather use that space for something else. Lower the Minimize, Maximize and Close button and you have more space.

Again: Not only a Windows issue.

I assume you're talking about the title bar? That empty space is the handle by which you can click and drag around the window. This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves with Chrome and the new Firefox. So often I find myself needing to move around the browser window (to my other monitor, for example) and when I go to click and drag, I accidentally hit the top of one of the browser tabs and drag it out into a new window instead of moving the original window.

I like it. Beauty is very personal. What they should do is have many different themes and easy to select, so people can choose what they want it to look like.

My issue, and this is not limited to Windows, is the use of the Toolbar. That think is almost always empty. e.g. this oneA pictogram, the name and three small things I can click. The image and the name is not something I need. That leaves the three buttons.

I rather use that space for something else. Lower the Minimize, Maximize and Close button and you have more space.

Again: Not only a Windows issue.

More like "Looks like another Windows version has been released. Time to start bitching about how terrible it is." This has occurred with EVERY version of Windows.

http://download.cnet.com/Windows-7-Annoyances/3000-20412_4-75188203.html
http://itexpertvoice.com/home/fixing-five-common-windows-7-annoyances/
http://askbobrankin.com/five_annoying_things_about_windows_7.html
http://techgage.com/article/top_8_vista_annoyances/
http://www.doitscared.com/826/common-windows-xp-annoyances-and-how-to-fix-them/
http://wiki.robotz.com/index.php/Annoyances_of_Windows_2000/XP
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-98-Annoyances-David-Karp/dp/1565924177

Point 1 - The premise that we are entering a "Post-PC" era requires some evidence to back the theory. TFA didn't provide anything, other than a reference to Newegg pulling out of their IPO in May 2011. And even with that statement, Kevin Purdy says, "What happened? The internal factors are unknown." That does not provide sufficient data to support his premise. Shame on you, Kevin Purdy, for your sensationalism.

Point 2 - Newegg.com sells a great deal more than just PC parts. Even if Kevin Purdy's apocalypse were to occur, Newegg has a great deal of other business to support their profits margins. Last time I checked, you can buy phones, tablets and ultrathin laptops from Newegg.com.

Point 3 - There is sufficient evidence that we are, in fact, in the midst of a PC expansion. Nvidia just made the claim that PC sales will overtake consoles by 2014, Microsoft believes in the prominence of the PC, Michael Dell comments on his predictions, Epic thinks the PC has been 2nd fiddle to the console for too long, and MaximumPC has an article showing the results of a Baird survey relevant to the issue.

Will some people buy phones, tablets and laptops (ultrathin or otherwise) instead of a PC? They have been for years, why would that change now?

Will the PC market dry up and force PC Enthusiasts into a world of non-replaceable component devices, where we will be forced to feed on the scraps of outdated machines? Doubtful. I point to the Audiophile market as a comparative case study, where you can spend an incredible amount of money on components that some might argue have been replaced by smaller and better integrated devices. I suspect the home built PC market will survive phones, tablets and ultrathin laptops, just as it survived Dell, Gateway, Micron, Acer, et al.

for your convenience, here you go: http://techgage.com/print/amd_rejects_bapcos_sysmark_2012_-_should_we

Lots and lots of tests and bechmarks. Looking good.

Intel 'Lynnfield' Core i5 750 and Core i7 870 Performance Testing Introduction :: TweakTown
Intel Core i5 and Core i7: Lynnfield CPUs reviewed - Intel, Core i5, Core i-750, Core i7, Core i7-860, Core i7-870, Lynnfield, Bloomfield, AMD Phenom II X4 - PC Games Hardware
Core i5 750 - Core i7 860 and 870 processor review
HEXUS.net - Review :: Intel Lynnfield Core i5 750, Core i7 860 and Core i7 870 CPU review: bombarding the mid-range : Page - 1/12
Legion Hardware
Intel Core i5 750 & i7 870 Review - Page 1 - The Next Nehalem-based CPU lineup
PC Perspective - Intel Lynnfield Core i7-870 and Core i5-750 Processor Review
Introduction - Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and Core i7 Processors | [H]ard|OCP
In Theory: How Does Lynnfield's On-Die PCI Express Affect Gaming? : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
AnandTech: Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Stronger[/QUOTE]
Intel Core i5 750 Core i7 870 Review - Overclockers Club
Techgage - Intel Core i7-870 & i5-750 - Nehalem for the Mainstream
Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 Processors Review | Hardware Secrets
Intel Core i5 750 Processor Review - TechSpot News
Intel Core i5 And Core i7: Intel?s Mainstream Magnum Opus : Introduction - Review Tom's Hardware
Intel Lynnfield Core i5-750 & Core i7-870 Processor Review
Intel's Core i5-750 and Core i7-870 processors - The Tech Report - Page 1
bit-tech.net | Review - Intel Core i5 and Core i7 Lynnfield review
bit-tech.net | Feature - Intel Lynnfield: Details and Architecture
Intel Core i5, Core i7 800 Processors and P55 Express - HotHardware
Intel Core i5-750 Processor BX80605I5750 | Intel Core i5-750,BX80605I5750,Lynnfield,LGA1156,CPU,Proocessor, Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield LGA1156 CPU Benchmark Performance Test Processor Review | Benchmark Reviews Performance Tests
Intel Core i7 870/Core i5 750/P55 Express chipset Review :: Introduction :: Motherboards.org

kano from kanotix has made some nice scripts for customizing it.

http://techgage.com/news/splashtop_hacked_functions_on_non-asus_motherboards/

I have a few old computers... and let me tell you one thing : IT ONLY TAKE SPACES IN YOUR HOUSE lol.. I'm about to dump them all lol or sell it via ebay... BUT

You have a few choices :
1- Sell it
2- Search for someone who have msdos installation disk (I have thoses... even win3.1 and they still works)
3a- Search for an old floppy drive... they're a few adaptor to plug them into your USB drive... cost ~20-30 bucks (Ex: http://techgage.com/article/vantec_sataide_to_usb_adapter/ )
3b- Download an MS-DOS boot disk... you only need to format C: /S or SYS C: you know... (If my memory is good lol) (Ex: http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml ... if you have an HD lol

Have fun

Really? I've found them to be fairly close in benchmarks I've read, with the Nvidia cards generally holding the edge. (Primarily comparing gtx 260 vs 4870) Can you show me any benchmarks within the last month or so that would possibly change my mind?

Techgage - GTX 260-216 vs 4870
Hexus - GTX 260-216 vs 4870

The GTX 295 looks like it will dominate the 4870x2 once it's released (supposedly in January)

xtreview - GTX 295 vs 4870x2
Fudzilla - GTX 295 vs 4870x2

Perhaps you should do some more research?

Beta Linux driver: http://alsa-project.org/main/index.php/User:ClemensLadisch

Other info: http://forums.techgage.com/showthread.php?t=3031

I'm still running a Creative Audigy 2 ZS with pretty good Linux and Windows support. Do the Creative X-Fi cards still lack Linux support? If so, one of the Asus cards may be the one to get for both Linux and Windows support.

I'm going to contribute nothing to this conversation other than to be a nazi and point out that the q6600 CPU runs at 2.4ghz, not the 1.6ghz listed in the article

http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_2_quad_q6600/

Linux will "support gaming" once games are supported for Linux. Linux has OpenGL, OpenAL, all the illusionary walls are market-made.

Looking at the games I play in Windows, almost every one of them is using DirectX. Now, I am not qualified to know why but that is a fact. That means that to use OpenGL/OpenAL under Linux you either:
a) Develop a Linux-only game
b) Develop using your second choice on your primary platform
c) Develop two code paths

The first one is just not doable if say the Linux market is 10% of the Windows market then you'd have to sell it at 10x the price to make as much money. Nobody would pay $500 for a Linux game that costs $50 on Windows. The second should scream at you "make sure you accomplish your primaries". Staffing will be harder, the tools are less used and so less tested and there's the risk you'll never get around to testing the Linux platform making it all for naught. Finally you have the last option, but then you're not only using the second-choice tool, but it has secondary priority in your project as well, which is never good because you might end up with a crappy second-rate experience which arrives late, if it doesn't get cut in a budget/schedule crunch. Yes, these are all market-made walls but they're by no means illusory.

Even XP needs tweaks to run Win9X games. How is targeting a moving sucky platform preferable to one that is open?

If by moving you mean that almost ten year old games play with tweaks, then your idea of moving must be anything outpacing a glacier. The market is that way because the market wants it that way. People want a game, they play it, go tired of it and move on. They're not willing to pay for support of old games, they're not willing to pay so their kids and grandkids can play the same games they once used to. Games have been a constantly moving target in terms of hardware etc. all the time, it's not like a stable OS would help with constantly new hardware acceleration. In other words, you've offered no reasons why Linux is better in any way for companies looking to make a Linux game.

In fact, there's plenty reasons that people wouldn't buy Linux games. Either they have a Windows machine, they're not willing to pay for it because it's not free as in beer, they're not willing to pay for it because it's not free as in speech, they don't want to pollute their kernel with closed-source drivers or whatever. And if you're looking for showcases that Linux can have great games, well I recently looked at most of those on the top 10 free linux games from september last year and I was very underwhelmed.

Let's start at
#10 KMahjongg: "The game is not pretty to look at... very circa 1997, but it has the core elements you've come to expect with the game of Mahjongg in general."
##8 Armagetron Advanced: "Who doesn't love Tron? Admit it, you do. Tron is a prime example of killer gameplay that doesn't need superb graphics to be fun."
##6 Pingus: "The game looks great, it really does. It has a fixed resolution of 800*600 though, which I found to be way to small for this game." ...and it stops after tutorial island even though you can download custom levels.
##5 Neverball: "You are however, able to edit the configuration file to your liking. It would have been nice to have this accomplished through in-game options though."
##2 Frozen bubble: "I am impressed with the game as a whole, but wish that you could adjust your resolution. It's set to 640*480, so it doesn't look at that sharp."

There's a few that are quite decent, but seriously.... most of them look like Windows games did in the 90s. If that's the effect of having a stable, open platform I'd rather take my Windows games any day.

In fact, the idea that Vista is significantly slower than XP is FUD.

First, I run Vista on three machine, my laptop, my desktop, and my work machine. My laptop is an IBM T42P. Not exactly the fastest machine on earth. (1.8 Ghz, 1GB of ram, 128MB ATI FireGL 2) It runs Vista faster than it ran XP... or, rather, it "feels" faster thanks to things like Readyboost. My "Windows Experience Index" is 3.8.

My desktop is over 2 years old (3.8 Ghz, 2GB of ram, ATI Radeon X850XT), and it runs Vista blazingly fast. The index on this machine is 5.2.

My work machine is a crappy Dell Precision 360 that's about 3.5 years old. It has 2GB of ram, 64MB graphics card, and 3GHz CPU. Vista runs great, and has an index of 4.2.

So there are three machine, all of which are between 2 and 4 years old, and all of which run Vista just fine. Only the work machine doesn't do Aero due to a non-DX9 graphics card.

But that's just my personal experience. So why not look at some real benchmarks done by 3rd parties. They show that Vista is comparable (slightly slower in some cases, slightly faster in others) to XP on the same hardware. In most cases, the benchmarks Vista does worst in are gaming benchmarks. Although we're only talking about 1-2% in most cases, these can be explain by immature drivers. Give it a few months and those drivers will likely be up to par with XP's.

Again, there is a LOT of FUD out there. I can see why it would be hard to sort through.

If you're interested in this, you may also be interested in a controller to keep your play styling the same as if you were on a console.

You actually think Vista is good for gaming? Hardly.
Check this out.
Me, I'll wait and see what the good folks at ReactOS come up with before I even consider switching to that buggy, insecure piece of bloatware that is Vista. XP does everything I need without throwing on unnecessary visual absurdities like a 3D desktop, and will continue to do so for a long time to come.

Is there any chance that the default 120GB drive is also using perpendicular recording technology? This review certainly implies that the whole Seagate 5400.3 range uses perpendicular recording. If it is, would it see an increase in speed over longditudinal drives as well?

I posted this above, but again:

A modern pre-manufactured flash drive will arrange its internal flash modules in a raid-0 type striped array. It will have extra flash in there and will use it when the flash in use begins to degrade.

With large stripping arrays you can easily make a flash drive outperform a HDD.

Here is some random review i found for a mere 2-set stripped array on a USB thumb drive (The OCZ Rally).

http://techgage.com/reviews/ocz/2gb_rally/hdtach.j pg
This is with the shitty IO handling of USB.

Reads are hitting 25mb. Make it a 4 set stripped array and we just met or exceeded the rates of a current spinning-disk HDD(I'm talking about reads from the disc, not cached reads). Make it 8? Starting to aproach the limit of ata-100. You suffer some in seek time each time you inscrease the size of the stripe array, but since flash has a very low seek time to begin with, it really is not an issue.

With random reads it is a whole different story. For very randomized reads/writes a single flash module is already competitive with a spinning-disc hdd.

I've had my share of itches to try Gentoo. Just wanted to let you in on what this reviewer said:

Gentoo is a source based distro, meaning all of the programs you download through the manager are compiled prior to installing. This generally means the end result is a program that's optimized for your system for better performance. Real world performance gains are debatable, but don't expect an instant message to send faster because you compiled GAIM. However, it may start up quicker than a binary installed version. In the end, this should not really be a factor weighed into your distro making decision. Unless you drink a -lot- of coffee, you will not likely notice a difference between compile > binary.

Above quote taken from here.

Your reply to the other poster is interesting enough, however it's flawed in the sense that most computer users will not make use of the feasible 64bit performance increases with chunked data, because most computer users want to play WoW, online poker, use MSN, surf the web and write troll posts on Slashdot (not unlike this one). The point is... Techgage's benchmark of 64bit half-life 2 says it all when it says, "Surprisingly enough, I didn't see an ounce of benefit from the 64-Bit."

The submitter mentioned a "Vista-esque KDE theme." That's all he meant. Sabayon's KDE looks a lot like Vista, nothing more.