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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?"
I think I would prefer to give up air and water first.
Oh, there's lots of great things to see and do on the 'net, but there's so much predation by more scum than even Mos Eisley would see on a good day that newbies must be inoculated before exposing themselves to it.
A firewall, virus scanning and quite a lot of gorm, to avoid spam scams. I'm almost to the point of telling, not merely suggesting, people to skip it if there isn't some damn good reason to be on the 'net.
Oh, and don't use Microsoft Explorer or Outlook or <Marvin Martian Voice> you'll be sorry, very sorry indeed.</Marvin Martian Voice> Getting on the 'net with good tools is a must and keeping up on them is also a must. Some degree of technical understanding is also essential, to identify when something is out of the ordinary, i.e. that request to verify your bank account goes to some ip address instead of yourback.com and where to go to keep up on the latest tools and information to protect oneself.
In the end, visiting or maintaining a presence on the internet is a job, not just an adventure, which requires some effort by the user to protect themselves.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
yeah we know, it's called internet explorer
~/.sig: No such file or directory
You don't have an excuse now. Get the minimac. It will suffice for many people (sure, _some_ people just have to have those silly apps that only work in windows, for them, the future is not so bright).
The choice is obvious.
1. Buy a mac or other non-windows machine
2. Use a browser with pop-up and ad blocking capablility.
3.
4. Profit from the wealth of information on the web.
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.....
What's the answer? Well, you could have pushed Linux until you said non-technical. Otherwise this thread could pretty much just be an ad for the Apple Mac Mini or even the iMac G5.
No, I won't add links to those. They're everywhere this week. And yes, I want one. Either one.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
For the first time in ages, I can say this with a perfectly straight face and without reservation:
Get a Mac.
They're affordable, they're stable, they're powerful, they're easy-to-use, they're resilient against infection, they come with excellent software, there are some great games available, and yes, Virginia, they'll even work with your multi-button mouse.
For the basic user, what else is there?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
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!
i know everyone is going to say this but two things immediately leap out at me.
1) don't use windows, for chrissakes. how many people out there in the world don't know that there are alternatives? is it really that many? is apple's media saturation here in the bay area completely nonexistent anywhere else?
2) the solution isn't legislation -- it's people making crappy products. if toyota made a car that constantly ran into trees, the solution wouldn't be banning trees, it would be making toyota make some good friggin' cars.
lord stuff like this makes me pissy.
go get it
Call me a troll, whatever.
I use to fix friends/relatives PCs all the time with their problems.
Then spyware just went amuck.
I tell people now to just buy an apple. They most likely won't call me for help with PC issues.
I myself am sick of the spyware crap that's out there infecting PCs. I am on the road to going 100% mac.
I don't see Microsoft fixing these issues, so I just tell people buy an Apple.
If a user doesn't have the time and/or inclination to leave their browser of (informed) choice downloading critical updates to browser, OS, AV, anti-spyware and so on, then they're more likely to go "Ah, skip it - I can get them later, and anything dodgy will get cleared out then."
If you don't have the bandwidth to match your impatience, you're less likely to keep your critical software up-to-date. Simple psychology.
Meta will eat itself
Like many others here, a lot of people ask me what I think they should buy when it's tine to get a (new) computer. I now have an easy anwer for all of them: an Apple Mac Mini. The $499 model plus $75 to bring it to 512 MB RAM is *perfect* for everyone I know. Nearly no one I know *needs* Windows for anything. If they do, they can get a second, older computer and not connect it to the Internet.
I am so, so happy Apple has finally made a *really* affordable good Mac. (Where "affordable" means "less than $800" and "good" means "doesn't have a bloody great CRT built-in." Yes, the iBooks are fabulous, but the small screen and keyboard aren't so great for some folks. And $1000 is a lot more than $600 for a lot of people.) Thank you thank you thank you!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Well gosh, Apple should get right on that before they lose all those home users who simply want to send email, surf the web, and make industry-grade schematic diagrams of skyscrapers.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
So, what you're saying is that you've stopped looking at porn?
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Get a Mac!
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
1. My parents both use Windows PCs at work. they work for large companies that are not going to transition from Windows to Linux or Macs.
/.ers suggest that I wish a perfectly straight face suggest they use a Mac or Linux? Not gonna float people.
No - they use Office at work. Admit it!!
That is why there is Office X for the Mac.
2. My parents get confused if I alter a toolbar on their home PC when I am working on it. They think it is broken if it does not look exectly like the one they use at work.
You give them too little credit. Perhaps they will like how the Mac works better overall?
3. They do not want to learn how to use a PC. They still can't program the video player, they have no DVD player, they think CDs are some sort of voodoo.
Then probably, they should have a Mac and not a PC.
How would
Pretty easy, really. How are they going to fare in the long term when Longhorn comes out if they don't even like changig a menu?
Break them of the habit now, a short-term pain will go a long way in the future.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...and when I opened the link, Firefox told me it had prevented latimes.com from opening a popup.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
when I got paid for knowing about computers for the first time I thought, "Everyone should own a computer!" I think that a lot less now. But not becuase I am 1337 and "they" are LUSERS with PEBCAK problems. Not at all.
The home computer has failed to become an appliance like a microwave, or a refrigerator. Is it really any easier than it was back in the Apple ][e, Commodre 64 days? Has WinXP or Suse 9.0 or OS X really made computing as transparent as heating a chicken? Has networking gotten much simpler?
For the average mom and pop at home who want to send some email, do some online banking, shopping, knowledge gathering and write a letter, maybe balance a checkbook really need dual G5s a P4 3.0?
The computer world looked ready to go back to main frame client/server models with things like Java et al. It should. Give mom and pop a 20+" monitor and keyboard and mouse and let them access everything though their browser. Here's you Word Processor, here's you email, here's your pr0n.
And for those of us bold enough to muck about in kernals, driver and whatnot well we still could. Andf we wouldn't have to do it everytime we visit our parents, neighbors, friend's office.
People are diving off the internet because configuring their computers is still hard. It's still "dangerous" and frankly all the pr0n in the world can't drive this "internet" thing much further. And to this point pr0n and games have driven the internet and home computing into the super computer realm to this point.
The users aren't the issue. The fact that some 40 years later not all that much has changed regarding setting up a network is an issue. The fact that there is a large corporation out there making consistently insecure software despite their responsibility as the market (well really as THE market) leader is an issue.
This
Well, close enough.
But I've known several people who have given up on the internet because of spam, nevermind spyware.
My wife is one. She really doesn't care for computers much. She only started using email when I was in Europe on business for a week, and our schedules made phone calls difficult. She liked it enough to keep using it, but she never used it much. So when she was getting several hundred spams a week, vs 1 or 2 real emails a week, she just gave up. She goes to the Yelow Pages and information and calling friends rather than using the web. I can't say that I blame her.
I think the best thing we can do is apply 19th century Texas justice. We can start with the UT student they just busted. If he's guilty, string him up from the highest light pole on I35 for the whole world to see. Run it on every news program for a week; ``Spammers, we're coming for you.''
These guys are costing us hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, and wasting the single, most precious commodity we have -- time. By intergalactic ore hauler loads.
I have a friend who lives a few doors away. He's been having a lot of trouble with spyware. Porn ads popping up all day long. It was making his PC a pain to use even after a neighbor spent a few hours trying to clean it out. This same friend also likes to tell me about how much audio and video he's downloaded he's downloaded using the web and p2p.
It's pretty obvious what's going on. Your machine gets cluttered with spyware if you spend time on sketchy web sites downloading all and sundry and doesn't otherwise.
My solution is pretty simple - if I'm going to download porn off the web I use a Mac.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
[BIG RANT]
*sigh* ok, let me clue you nerds in. I have to get this out because it's an endless debate between some of the most myopic people on the Internet claiming to be the most informed.
I know we're probably a good 300 posts into this thread already and this posting of mine will be lost, but I feel the need to intervene anyway;
Some thoughts, from what I see here:
1) Normal joe/jill average users don't want to, and shouldn't have to, make checking e-mail and surfing the web a second job. So keeping up with every latest turn in the spyware/adware/spam drama is not an option. Your "it's that simple" solution isn't that simple to people who aren't immersed in computer culture 24 hours a day. Drop the faux-Darwinism routine and join us in what I like to call "real life". We're over here, in the sun.
2) Normal joe/jill average users WILL NOT run more than one computer for seperate tasks. This is insanity to begin with. Don't take your desk as an example of a normal computer user. You may have a room dedicated to your four boxes with various chips and OSes, but no normal human wants to do that. They want A box, with A monitor, and A device to interact with that box. They want a TV with a keyboard, but one that won't force them to download porn or send and recieve spam. The solution isn't a NeXT box for checking e-mail and a Sparc for web surfing, with a Windows NT 4 box off network for accounting, or some other absurd scenario.
3) Normal joe/jill users will want to run some fairly mainstream programs. If you're running AutoCAD, or MSSQL, or Cybertrader, you're a professional so the rules above no longer apply. Normal joe/jill average users want e-mail, fun web pages, The Sims maybe, Quicken. They want to buy a CD or a book online maybe, if they're feeling fancy. No crazy NASA shit. Don't hold them to your twisted standards of what normal people do with computers.
Where am I going with this? The only logical recourse at the moment is to get an Apple Macintosh for these users who are not computer dependant or who are not computer experts.
I know you all hate to hear it (other than the Mac fanboys who love to hear it, but let's just tolerate them for a moment). It's the only mainstream path for people who are trying to make joe/jill average user's computer experience workable. I've done it. I've set people up on Apples. I don't get calls about computers! They talk to me about them, but only to say how much they want to hug the damn things.
Regarding the proposition of a Linux desktop for these people. If you want to inflict frustration or dependancy on the normal joe/jill average user you're trying to help, if controlling them through reliance on your godlike technical abilities is your bag, by all means set them up with a Linux desktop. You can claim to have grandma set up on linux, and all your friends will pat you on the back for being such a wise advocate. Your grandma will use her computer all of the one time she can remember he login and password. Then when her $2000 investment in technology is worthless to her, and she calls for help to get some sort of value out of it, you can sigh call her dumb under your breath for not knowing how to operate an expert level OS. Hope you feel big...
You people frustrate me beyond words sometimes.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Anyways this is why Apple decided to build the Mac Mini, its the almost perfect solution to a lot of entry user's dilemmas. The average PC owner is almost completely in the dark when it comes to most technologies. The average Windows User has almost no idea of what he/she is supposed to do to maintain a Windows OS. They are just clueless.
Linux is a great alternative but a lot of these people (the target audience for the Mac Mini) is just out of their league. Meantion sudo to them and they'll just stare at you blankly. A lot of people have PCs just to do the basic things, Windows does suffice some of the time. But usually there are too many problems. Most people just want to be able to chat, email, surf, print, write papers, organize photos, and so forth. Not all that easy on a Linux box, and more trouble than its worth for Windows.
Don't get me wrong I have a Linux box and a Windows box. I only use the Windows box for gaming, thats all that it really excels at. I use Linux for a lot of my programming, webserving, hosting, and other tech savy needs. My Mac I use for everything else. Its that everything else that Apple is banking on. They know that people just want to be able to do something easily, safely, and quickly.
"... No one is immune. Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates discovered spyware on his personal machine not long ago. ..."
No one immune?
Pardon me, but WRONG! I'm on a Mac. I am damn well immune, thank you. I have no problems on my Safari og Firefox or Camino. I AM immune from spyware and malware.
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.