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Spam and Spyware Too Much for Some Users
stewart_maximus writes "Spam and spyware is annoying to everyone, but some users are giving up on the Internet (mirror). Any Slashdot readers know someone who pulled the plug in frustration? Any advice for frustrated users, especially non-technical users?"
For the last 2 weeks i've been trying MS Antispywaree tails.aspx?Fa milyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&displa ylang=en&Hash=5BMW635
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d
And i must say, it works easyer then ad-aware or Spybot. And works BETTER then ad-aware and spybot..
Just a thought..
What would you do without a monitor? Sit and look stupid behind a keyboard and a mouse
This
Get Firefox.
The internet experience doesn't have to be this way, but when the powers that be (Microsoft, mostly) sit on their laurels and allow the situation to degenerate, what hope is there?
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori
It's even worse when you encounter the opposite... Those who refuse to give up the Internet even though they've got hundreds of virii and spyware programs on their system.
A couple of months ago, I went into my dry cleaner and they said they couldn't take credit cards that day. The reason? Their credit card system (PCs on the Internet) wasn't working because of a virus. I thought about giving them a lecture on keeping credit transactions off the public Internet, but knew it wouldn't do any good so just paid cash and left.....
get a mac! Popup blockers work just the same. There's pretty much no such thing as spyware or virii.
Easy Instructions:
:)
a) Download Firefox.
b) Download anti-spyware (ad-aware, Spybot)
c) Get off the internet.
d) Run the anti-spyware to make sure your machine is 100% virus and spyware free.
e) Activate your winxp firewall.
f) install Firefox.
Ta-da!
My dad now emails me very frequently to ask if one of his emails is real or fake. It seems like he gets a PayPal or Ebay phish every other day. I've tried to explain to him to hover over the link and make sure it says www.paypal.com or ebay.com and not a dotted ip address. But he doesn't get it. I understand why people do phishing scams, but the spam is driving customers away from all net advertising. This should be a wake-up call for these types of advertisers. They are driving customers away from any future sales.
It doesn't stop spam from coming in, but it does solve the problem for your average user.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Incidentally, just FYI, you can actually add 3rd-party RAM to the Mini yourself without voiding the warranty. Take a look at this:
Clearing up confusion about the Mac Mini
[quote]
While it is strongly recommended that you only have an Apple Authorized Service Provider crack it open and install RAM, hard drives, Airport and Bluetooth, it will NOT void your warranty if you do it yourself. As is standard operating procedure, however, anything you break while attempting anything on your own is not Apple's responsibility and will not be covered under warranty. I think that is pretty much common sense.
Among other things, the Mac mini boots headless too.
If not a Mac.
:)
1. Get a Gmail account and use that with Thunderbird for email.
2. Get Firefox,
3. If on broadband get a router/switch/firewall appliance and keep it updated.
Finaly Knoppix will let you surf the web without much worry about spyware and or virus attack. Might take a techie set it up the first time but after that.
And yes Linux is an option even for a non-techie. It might take a techie to set it up but once setup it can be very useful and easy to keep working.
Fedora with Yum setup with a cron job to do updates over a broadband connection could be just the ticket for some people.
Now if you could run turbotax under wine
Or get a Mac
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
After reading your post, I am stricken with a serious feeling of irony.
Just as you stated, the gentleman running the cleaning business was responsible for his own loss of data. That example brings part of the problem to the forefront. Tech companies keep trying to make things easier and easier for any idiot to use a computer. In doing so, they are keeping those same people from learning very important lessons about basic data security.
And so goes the cycle. Most of the people bitching about the problem are, in a sense, causing the problem.
Of course, you install Firefox and Thunderbird.
LitePC is too flexible for the typical home user, though. It's used mostly for configuring business desktops and embedded systems. Basically, it lets you turn off, selectively, most of what's in XP but not XP Embedded. They really need a one-step CD product that cleans out adware, spyware, and viruses, removes Internet Explorer, and installs Firefox and Thunderbird.
There really aren't that many important web sites left that work only with IE. And you can usually find a competitor that sells the same thing. I haven't run IE in a year or so now.
I've been using Windows and Linux for years. Last September my school gave me a Mac to use. After 4 months of use I've realized just how much better a Mac can be for people without a CS degree or similar experience. Nothing bad has happened to anyone I know using the Macs.
Next time my parents and friends of a less geek-ish persuasion decide to upgrade, the new Mini Mac is going to be the only one I will continue to provide free tech support for - which means, as I've learned, hardly any tech support at all.
Their spam protection is excellent and its much more difficult to "automatically" execute a binary if you have to download it first.
Combine that with Firefox and ymessenger and they have a lot of what makes Internet great without much risk.
I am surprised at how many windows users browse the web (among other things) while logged in with administrator privileges.
... except that heaps of software for windows expects to be run as administrator. The amount of problems she's run into simply through running as a non-privileged user is astonishing, and it often seems as though MS is the worst offender of them all.
I'm not. I recently supervised the purchase of a new laptop for my mother, and since it was a fresh machine I set up a separate administrator account, told her never to use it except when installing software and/or windows updates. I installed firefox and t'bird, explained about spyware and that unless software is open-source there's no such thing as a free lunch. And she took it all in and that was fine
The moral is: if you want to run without root privileges on Windows, you're going to have to put up with a heap of annoying crap. And that's assuming that the user is informed enough to even realise that there's such a thing as "administrator" and that they're set up by default to run as that - there's nothing under the WinXP setup that I saw that alerts users to the need to run as a non-privileged user.
Just in case you missed it from the Mac mini specs page:This means that if you want to upgrade the RAM in a Mac mini and keep your warranty, you'll be paying someone. Same goes for AirPort, Bluetooth, hard disks, optical drives, and anything else you may want to shoehorn into one.
'DIY' is the name Apple has given to parts customers can install themselves. (It used to be 'CIP', or 'Customer Installable Parts', but this has changed). It's Apple's policy that, if you modify any non-DIY component, you have voided your warranty. From that page you've linked to, the manager seemed to have stated Apple's policy on DIY parts. In the case of the Mac mini, it was wrong.
On systems that memory is a DIY part (every other Mac except the mini), it would be correct -- you can install memory yourself, but if you break the computer it's not covered under warranty. This isn't the case with the Mac mini -- the moment you pop the top, you've voided your warranty.
I'm not saying this is a good thing. However this is the truth of the matter, and anyone stating otherwise is wrong.
(And yes, a lot of geeks don't care about warranty, and will install RAM themselves anyway. Good for them!)