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Why Does Windows Still Suck?
RatBastard writes "SF Gate's Mark Morford asks: Why Does Windows Still Suck? After wtaching his significant other's Windows PC drown in a sea of viruses and worms after only 4 minutes on her new DSL connection, Mark Morford wonders why the masses have not stormed Redmond waving torches and scythes in anger over the never-ending security flaws in Windows. Why haven't they jetisoned the foul beast from Redmond and migrated en mass to the Macintosh or even Linux?"
I'm a gamer.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
Why would you let your SO attach an unpatched and unprotected PC to the Internet? Would the author let her walk SF's Tenderloin after dark in a halter, leather mini & fishnets?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
They don't know of anything else, and Windows came with the computer.
Because it's still Windows.
It's not a problem with Windows! The operating system is okay! It's digitally signed!
Why? Because Microsoft focuses its resources on market share rather than making a robust and stable system. Once consumers are locked in they tend to stick with what they know and buy the upgrades. It's that inertia that MS banks on when they release repackaged corn-laden turd and call it "Windows NextGen-2010+++ with Lemon Scent" Seriously: what real ideas have they come up with in the past many years? Everything they make is a bit shinier and fatter than the previous versions but where is the innovation?
Trolling is a art,
They don't care
Sounds like too easy of an answer, but for non-tech savvy people, a computer is just a tool for email, web, etc. If computers were a vital part of people's lives, they might care. Corporations can pay administrators to keep their computers clean, but joe twelvepack doesn't use his computer for anything that he can't do without. QED.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
People have been taught that computers are inherently unstable, will often crash, are very complex machines that are basicly a house of cards. They have been fed the line that 'security is too hard!' so much they believe it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a mac fanboy myself, and I agree 100% with most of the author's conetentions, but, some of his evidence is a bit whack:
He links to the Crack a Mac challenge, as evidence that macs are bulletproof. Fine, but read their story- most of the attempts to crack *that* mac were based on old UNIX and NT attacks, and well, duh! HOWEVER- nobody (hardly) uses macs for webserves. If we had been doing that for the past 15 years, well, perhaps there'd be heaps of *known* exploits. The Crack a Mac story doesn't prove that there aren't exploits, it proves that not many folks know what they are.
Apparently the connection is through SBC Yahoo! DSL.
I recently got DSL through my phone provider (SBC) and am torn on if I like it or not. The CD they send with it has spyware, its own browser, and all sorts of nasty things that WILL bring your system to a crawl easily. Sure Windows doesn't do very well, but a provider's CD like SBC Yahoo's does not help at all.
Hooking it into my Linux box with rp-pppoe was nice though - and the speed is impressive.
unf.
Without Antivirus, how do you know it's "clean as a whistle"? It's kind of a schrodinger's cat scenario; you haven't looked.
I was afraid too, even though I had used Linux on the campus PCs. I used to have the same problem (immediate infection/total system compromise within hours after hooking up to the net). It was so bad that after re-formatting and installing the online anti-virus software my university provided me, it was already too late. I fearcely battle virsuse for nearly two weeks, then I finally gave up and installed Linux. Now I thank those viruses, and Windows/M$ for failing to do anything to prevent them from entering my system. Had that not have happened, then it's likely I would still be trapped in Windows.
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
What kind of excuse is that? Do you have to patch your brakes, or update your steering defintions on your car just to make it safe to use?
NEWSFLASH # 4
Profit?
Jonathanjk.com
Second, the average user could no more tell you the difference from an OS and an application than from a Trojan versus a Virus.
Finally, the average user isn't all that clued that there are any other options out there, and there are few if any application or game ads on TV that say "Runs on Mac" or "Runs on Linux" to make them even look.
---
More rants like this on my blog
The worms and viruses are designed to be hard to detect. People have infected machines that they don't know are infected. Out of sight, out of mind.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
Perhaps this is just human nature. But as a "switcher" who is approaching his one year anniversary with a PowerMac after almost 20 years of Windows and DOS (starting with DOS 2.0!) I can honestly say: Windows users, it's not your fault. Microsoft should be ashamed, not you. Windows sucks, and there are better choices out there for you. Make them! You'll be happy that you did.
Pure and simply laziness. Yes there computer is slower, but they can still kinda check e-mail. And when it is really slow they can go out and fork over another $1000 for a new DELL. Also you know the saying "Back in my day..." What that really means is: "I am old and lazy and don't care to learn any new tricks". People are lazy asses who just like to sit around and will easily pay $1000 to make their problems go away without having to "learn" the complicated Apple computer. People are LAZY. They are so lazy that if they thought about it for a minute they would realize that the five minutes it takes to learn OSX (and two days to move files) far outweights the two months of lost time on windows. It really ticks me off how lazy people are.
-Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
In Slashdot terms, that article was Interesting, but not Informative, and certainly not Insightful. It basically boils down to two things:
What it does not provide, though, unfortunately, is an attempt to explain why that actually is the case. The author goes on to dismiss every attempt that has been made to explain just why Windows is still so dominant (like "Macs are too expensive") - or, for that matter, why Windows is (still!) so inherently insecure (like "Macs have no viri because they are not an attractive target") -, but he doesn't even attempt to offer other reasons for these things. Rather, he just says "these are what I claim to be the facts, they're contradictive, but I'm not gonna explain it".
Considering the article's title ("Why Does Windows Still Suck?") promises an explanation, that's rather unfortunate, and I'm afraid I have to conclude it's just praise for the Mac with little to no informational value, and minor goof-ups like confusing PCs with "PCs that run Windows" just make it even more clear that this is not an objective comparison or explanation attempt.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
It's "cheap", and by cheap I mean free as in "already installed on the PC when I bought it" cheap. No installation work needed, I'm used to using it's features, etc. - that's what the typical computer user would say these days.
And if the computer "breaks" or slows down it's not that expensive to go buy a new one. It's just a part of our American "throw-away" consumerism. Apple computer users are like the Jaguar and Mercedes crowd - they're pretty damn expensive cars, but they'll last for a long time and look great on the road no matter how old they are. Linux computer users trying to use Linux on the desktop are like the "ricers." The car doesn't always work, is usually a "work in progress," but when done right can demolish any comparably priced car. They're still not as classy or long-lasting as the Mercedes and Jaguars, but every once in a while they're pretty cool.
'Cept Linux users don't get hot booth babes at the trade shows.
Do you have to patch your brakes, or update your steering defintions on your car just to make it safe to use?
You don't drive a Ford I take it...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It's the same reason why people don't storm the White House...
It's the same reason why people don't storm the RIAA headquarters...
It's the same reason why people don't storm the *insert whatever you like*...
Sure, Slashdotters might get angry and send off snail mail/email/faxes to whoever they're angry at. But we're a minority.
The MAJORITY are just too complacent with their lives. They're happy within their immediate environment. They may think it's not right, but they'll never take the action against it. It's too much of a hassle.
So instead they just acceot it. Windows crashing is obviously not so much of an inconvenience that they must storm Redmond. It's easier to push the reset button.
Why do people eat at McDonald's? They definitely don't make the best burger in town.
Things like consistency, convenience, perceived value, brand recognition, etc., all play a big role.
Try connecting an unpatched Solaris 2.6 box to the internet. Within a day it will be hacked and much more dangerous than any hacked Windows PC.
Caleb
Longhorn will be the first release of Windows authored completely after Microsoft began their Trusted Computing Initiative and released .NET. Longhorn will reimplement and convert major Windows subsystems to managed code. This alone will substantially improve security of the operating system, as while the APIs will remain the same legacy Win32 apps will end up talking to managed code beneath the Win32 API (yes, .NET makes this possible)
This will dramatically lessen the exploitation potential of code flaws in the Windows application libraries. Microsoft has to maintain support for legacy application, but that doesn't mean they can't get a fresh start on the underlying code, and doesn't mean that existing Microsoft applications can't be converted to managed code as well.
damn it, i'm sick of all the windows bashing.. it's an awesome OS... comes complete with a calculator and a paint program, not to mention the ability to clean your disk (i don't know how they do it, but they must have some crazy washer/dryer system inside) I hear this grinding sound inside my computer so that must be it. Also, it has the ability to change the background picture... how freakin' cool is that!? I can put up a picture of my cats!!! IT'S RIGHT THERE ON MY MONITOR!!! What more could you ask for in an OS?! Come on people!
If you think A/V is the only way to protect your box or figure out what it's doing, you're probably one of the people who needs it.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Preinstalling their os with every new computer is huge advantage for them. If the government told them to sell their OS on the market for over $100(xp cost) then people would wise up and buy something else.
Another reason though is that Linux still can be a hassle like downloading firefox and having to use administrator login to install.
Not a very accurate analogy. Wouldn't it suck if the car were to unconditionally burst into flames unless you were sure to also purchase an extra $1000 in "safety features" and have them installed perfectly before ever attempting to drive it? (And without the dealer actually telling you this.)
Get it now? You microsoft apologists should really get a clue.
If all the software that people ran was available on linux and macs, games included, then more people, including myself, would switch. And honestly, I am computer savvy, but I am not even sure if there are still many different versions/releases of linux outhere, where to get them from, wether they are free or I gotta buy them. I know IT guys are all over linux, but I don't think the article, and the question is poses are aimed at IT/programmer types. So in a nutshell, being a regular guy using my computer, if there was more software available for linux, and it was clear how to acquire it, I would be switching. Most people, like myself just want to put a disc in a drive,install and not worry about it any more.
The only reason so many Windows boxes get pwned out of the box is because the 'bad guys' have already written exploits that get in through an unpatched bug.
Who's fault is this? Is it Microsofts? Not really, at least how I see it.
I blame the computer manufacturer that you bought the box from.
Those holes that are in your windows box when you plug it into the net already have patches written for them.
It's the manufacturers that refuse to slipstream these packages into the software builds that they stick on their machines coming out of the factory.
Dell builds your PC to order, as do a few other guys.
The hard drive has an OS imaged onto the drive on the line.
And since there is a common image for each machine of the same family, it's a very simple process for Dell to image their machines on the line.
Each model has it's own OS image, based on hardware.
It would take very little effort to slipstream an updated patch into those images. No PC has to sit in an open box waiting to be patched; they are patched when they're built. That is not a difficult solution, it would take the hiring of one or two guys in the factory to add a slipstream into the disk image (and slipstreaming is *very* easy, as long as you know the process.)
It would be easy as pie. Your machine would come off the line patched, and current. It would only be out of date by a few days, the time it would take to ship the box to you from the factory. The likelihood of a new exploit that would pwn you in that time is very, very low.
Same thing with going to a retailer. They should be provided current and up to date boxes when they leave the store. It would not be difficult for BestBuy/CircuitCity/et al to stick the box/laptop you buy inside their secured network, and patch the machine before you walk out the door with it.
Let's use an analogy that the author of the article used; a new car.
You buy a new Ford. Before you bought it, Ford issued a recall, due to a defective gas tank that may or may not explode. When you buy the car off the lot, it may have sat there a few months (parallel = older unpatched windows build). You take it home to find out that the recall was not applied to the vehicle; why not? Because the dealer says it's your responsibility to get it in to get fixed; not the dealers.
Would that be acceptable? No. Not for a moment. The same thing is happening with Windows, and you can't blame MS for it. It's the PC makers that sell you an exploitable box.
" Maybe if his S.O. was a little more competent, Windows wouldn't suck so much."
Think about it. If it was a TV.
"My SO plugged the brand new TV into the cable system and 4 minutes later it stopped working." You SO is a moron. Why wasn't your SO smart enough to open the back of the TV and rewire the power supply!
Or if it was a car.
"My SO just got a new car and the engine was trashed after driving it 4 minutes."
Why was your SO so stupid to drive a brand new car with out first opening the hood and setting the valve clearance!
You statement is just dumb and insulting. She is not a moron. She is just not a system admin. What is moronic is that people are selling Windows XP boxes that are so insecure that they can not live on the Internet long enough to download SP2.
Maybe every Windows Box should come with the network stack inactive. When you want to connect to the Internet a special super restricted TCP/IP stack pops up and downloads the latest updates for you. Windows is being pushed as a consumer item it should be expected to act like one.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I can already tell this article will find itself in league with the all-time great classic technical-discussion.slashdot.org postings such as:
-Why does Windows still blow?
-Why does my Tux tattoo still itch?
-Why can't I still get a date?
and now back to the fallout shelter...
This analogy sucks. The correct analogy would be akin to this person buying a car and driving straight into the middle of the highway and expecting not to be hit by another motorist.
Put your coat on when you go outside. Wear your seatbelt. Put on SPF 30. Lock your doors. Tie your shoes. Kill the power before you do any electrical work.
We do millions of things each day to protect ourselves. Why should hopping on the 'Net and operating a computer be any different? I don't imagine the author expects that ANY new computer owner simply opens the box and has no problems operating the computer (Mac, Linux, Windows or any OS).
There's evil out there. Be careful.
This space intentionally left blank.
I'd just submitted the same item, but with some additional background...
Moreford isn't the only person noting crap quality of Microsoft. The New York Times saw fit to run 2300 words on erasing a hard drive and reinstalling the OS, to terminate spyware with extreme prejudice. I mean, when was nuking your C:\ drive national news? A few months earlier, I was interviewed for an expose of the adware/spyware industry in Barbiarians at the Digital Gates. My own technical followup, Spyware, Adware, Windows, GNU/Linux, and Software Culture has garnered a number of responses, most variations of "why do people put up with this cr*p?!"
Even the local small-town paper's usually Microsoft partisan columnist is suggesting it's time for the Microsoft Empire to begin to crumble. And he's not the only one.
The point is that these aren't geeks and gearheads talking out, it's the current in the popular press. Ordinary people. Which wouldn't be so significant if there weren't clearly identifiable, far better alternatives. Linux. Mac OS X. ABMS - Anything but Microsoft.
I think we're finally seeing the ediface crumble.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
The whole topic of games development using DirectX vs OpenGL has been discussed to death here. Sure, the game writers could do it in OpenGL instead of DirectX, but Microsoft has apparently made using DirectX extremely easy. Maybe what it will take is someone to write a translation library that will basically translate the DirectX calls into OpenGL calls. Once that's out there, more games can be done for non-Windows systems. While all that's going on, OpenGL must be made friendlier to use than DirectX.
OK, it's a lot... but if you really want to lure the games developers to the side of platform independence, you have to give them a good reason to do so.
OCO is Loco
That reminds me of an email I got the other day when I asked the user if she had MS Word. I'll paste it here:
"I have microsoft explorer xp, but don't think it's microsoft word. It's call word perfect."
I can see it now - him sitting across the room, her with a laptop on a table... then she reaches around the back of the table and saying "Now I'll try out the internet connection".
Slow motion... the guy throwing himself across the room as the hand with the RJ45 inexorably moves into place faster than he can arrive.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
ALl you need to make it a great scene in a movie is for the laptop to shake, slide off the table, then explode in a huge fireball when it impacts the carpet as the guy knocks her out of the way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have three systems at home:
Desktop: Windows XP Home + SP2
Laptop: Windows 2000 Pro + SP4
Server: Fedora Core 3
Both Windows machines are stable, virus, spyware and hacker free. Windows 2000 has given me no trouble at all. Windows XP has had a few issues caused by third party drivers. Windows update keeps everything current.
FC3 is a great system, but it's a Windows world. There is a fair amount I simply can't do because I don't have DirectX, Windows Media Player, Quicktime, or one of many other Windows only (or non-Linux) applications.
The only time I was ever hacked was on Linux (an unprotected Red Hat 6.2 box back in 2000)
Classic MacOS is as (un)stable as Windows 98. MacOS X is quite nice, but my experience is that the hardware and software support still isn't there.
A $20 router/firewall is all you need to protect you long enough to get Windows patched. The bots are fairly dumb and easily stopped. Ad-aware and AVG free edition protect from spyware and viruses. Using Firefox over Internet Exploiter eliminates the browser hijacks.
The biggest problem with Windows is that Microsoft gave a very powerful OS to Joe Servicepack who has NO CLUE how to get it stable and keep it stable.
For 97 percent of users in the world, Macs would be a more elegant and intuitive and appealing solution. Period.
so... explain to me why 97 percent of users are NOT on macs? look. i use both a windows pc and i own a powerbook. they both do their job well. and it has its own specific use. but until i can play a game like oh, madden 2005 on a mac, well, the sheer flexibility that a PC offers gets my money. and yes, i upkeep it and maintain it.
thousands of glorious iPods have already infiltrated the Microsoft campus up in Redmond, causing MS management no end of humiliation and frustration. Can revolution be far behind?
honestly, this guy's use of adjectives is sickening. to me, his journalistic integrity (for a columnist anyway) went out the door...
she promptly dumped the useless hunk of sad landfill and bought herself a beautiful new iBook.
i rest my case. ugh.
When you tried to do this, companies would say that you needed to contact Microsoft for the refund. Microsoft would say you needed to contact the computer seller. Once you finished running around in circles, you found out that it only cost the manufacturer about $1.00 to put the copy of Windows on that machine, and that's what you'd have refunded to you.
Of course, if you needed to get Windows back on the machine, now you'd have to pay the $180 for a full copy of it, because you had to return any and all materials from your computer purchase in order to get your dollar back.
Of course, if you managed to convince the manufacturer to sell you a computer without an operating system pre-installed, you had to pay an extra $10-$50 for that choice. Why? In order to be sure the computer worked in the first place, they had to install Windows to test the peripherals and other devices! Oh, did you want warranty support too? Sorry. "We don't support other operating systems."
The whole pre-installation thing was pure genius on the part of Microsoft's marketing department.
OCO is Loco
No duh pre-installing Windows on computers is a huge advantage, but it's not like the vendors don't have a choice.
This article says otherwise.
Some history.
That's why. We have an agreement with IBM to use their hardware (golf course agreement - we send them biz, they send us biz) and for the most part I like it. I think their blade and 44X servers are GREAT.
However, they have subtle differences with each set of machines that come off the production line. You can buy 4 servers at the same time and each will be a LITTLE different. Linux doesn't care. We use the same image with blades that we use with 345s that we use with 445s - no sweat.
BUT, with Windows, 2 blades (or whatever) require totally different drivers to be installed. My team can image (literally) tens (and probably 100-200, although we haven't tested that) of servers at once - using Linux in about a day. Windows - won't work, the requirements for the OS to have just the RIGHT driver for each server is a bloody NIGHTMARE.
Another issue is access. A lot of applications with Windows seem to need admin equivalent access and then want that ongoing to change anything. This means a lot of people need a LOT more access than we want to give out! With *nix, we've managed to use sudo and scripts to keep those boxes better locked down.
Otherwise, to be frank, I don't give a r@ts ass one way or the other. I simply line Linux b/c it works. If we could get past the image issue, I could probably live with Windows (and just suck it up WRT access).
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
If you truly believe that viruses and other types of malware don't exploit these holes then I doubt I'll be able to convince you. Look around with Google.
There's too many people who are "comfortable" enough with what they've got. I've got a friend who's not willing to try anything other than Windows because he knows how to use Windows. He complains about the crashing and bugs and all, but he doesn't want to have to learn a new system. And avoiding that inconvenience is more important to him than getting a better quality product.
There's also the public image issue. Everyone knows about Windows. Mac still has a stigma of being prone to crashing and annoying users with all those old "Are you rally sure you were really sure you wanted to click that yes you truely indeed did want do do that?" dialog boxes. You and I know those issues are no longer things to worry about, at least they're far smaller bothers than they once were, but the mass public doesn't know that, and they aren't willing to even have a look to find out, much like so many slashdotters here are unwilling to fairly evaluate AmigaOS4 last week or so what that article came up. The mass public echoes your "Amiga is dead!" chants only they point it at Mac instead, or point chants about "What can *I* possibly use Linux for?!" at the Linux crowd.
Linux has other public image issues to work though. Things like "It's hard to install or use" have been addressed reasonably well, but the public again isn't willing to discover that to be true. Linux also has the old reputation of having no applications or games or stuff normal people would use. I know many people that cannot fathom what in the world I could possibly use Linux or AmigaOS for, yet are unwilling to be shown all the everyday applications like OpenOffice, Mozilla, Doom3, Unral Tournament, etc. that exist for Linux or AmigaOS equivalents for many things, and insist on continuing in their incorrect belief that such apps and games do not and CAN NOT exist outside of Windows. Even though the Mac crashes chants are obsolete and Windows has the same reputation, the masses are not willing to bother with reasoning.
The fact that MS pretty much looks like it IS the somputer software industry also has a great hold on users. There are lots who simply believe that since they are so big, they must have the best product. Even with the obvious bugs and other problems they experience, many people believe that since everyone else is such a small marketshare that they must of course have even worse quality products than the market winner has. For example, I can not get my dad to use anything but MS products because of this. He uses MSIE and Outlook, and there's no changing that, no matter how many viruses or spybots or zombies his computer is infected with. The friend I mentioned above is unwilling to use anything but MSIE because he doesn't care to learn anything else, as trivial as that learning curve may be, he's simply not interested even after all of his own complaining about MSIE.
It's not a "problem" with a rational solution, I don't think it'sbecause people are "stupid" or anything like that, I think it's because the vast majority of people simply do not care enough to actually do anything about it. Having what they're used to or what 97% of the world uses is more important to them than having a higher quality product.
You must be new here.
So I was reading /. when I came across a typical 'OMG Windows SuXors' article..
I casually sipped my afternoon coffee, set it down, and clicked the article link, bracing myself for the deluge of mind-numbing numbers and references to obscure studies.
After reading the article, I looked to the right side-bar for a list of other recent articles by the author. Trying to get a feel for the authors views, I decided to peruse a few of them.
Well, I must say. Mark Morford has to be one of the most rabid, extremist, over-reactive, leftist, tin-foil hat wearing, Moore wannabe's I've had the displeasure of reading.
Now, before the flames begin to rise, please understand the last paragraph was a simple reciprocle example of Mr. Morford's diatribes. Basically take a simple statement, and make it appear so sensationistically over-the-top.
So now to my point. How can this article be used on a news site, when it is simply nothing more than a rant? I use Linux and Windows, and on occasion Macs. I rarely have any problems with any of my systems. I have never had my Windows boxed filled with virii/trojans, nor have I had a crash in as long as I can remember. Am I just one of the lucky ones, or do I simply ignore the little monkey moving back and forth in a feeble attempt to evade my mouse click for a Free iPod
Actually, they don't. Microsoft have repeatedly threatened & upped the price on vendors who sell machines without the OS pre-installed. And they have also charged for a Windows license for every machine sold, regardless of what OS was actually on it. This was the meat of one of the many lawsuits pending against MSFT when W. took office (and then they went away...)
Karma: Excellent (Mainly due to Bill & Ted's Karma Adventure)
Point 2 is invalid. Migrating to Mac was pretty easy, actually. No worse than the annual reinstall of Windows:
1: Backup email - check
2: Backup bookmarks - check
3: Backup personal files - check
4: Backup porn/music/etc.. files - check
5: Import email into Mail.app - check
6: Import bookmarks into Safari/FireFox/etc... - check
7: Copy personal files into documents folder - check
8: hide porn in folder named "1997 tax records" - check
9: Import music into iTunes - Check
10: Profit.
It took me two hours to migrate my files from my Windows box to my Mac, not including the time iTunes needed to import my 17GB music collection from my file server. And that included installing Firefox (I don't care for Safari). The hardest part was finding a word processor that I liked when the 30-day trial version of Office ran out. But I never liked Word anyway.
Understand that when I migrated to Mac I had spent about an hour fooling around with OS X on a friends computer and had no real knowledge in what programs did what. Apple has very easy to understand help documents tailored to people moving to Mac from Windows.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Seriousily, where has this woman been in the past few years. If she had any brains at all she would have known, and the author of the the article should have told her, that she needs to have a firewall and virus protection when you have a broadband connection. It justs makes sense. I hate how many people on this site always jump on the I hate Microsoft and evil corporations bandwagon. Granted, Microsoft does have many sercurity problems and issues. However, Windows is the most widely used OS. As a result they have the most attackers in the world. If you were a spyware or virus creator, hacker, or whatever what would you attack. A realatively small market such as Linux or Mac or would you go after the largest market. I know Linux probably has better security in some respects, but we all need to look at the Microsoft situation from their perspective from time to time. And I don't completely like Microsoft. I pretty much thought all their OSs unitl XP completely sucked. You have to give them credit that XP was a huge step forward in the right direction from ME. Just thought I'd put my 2 cents in.
Okay, first the obligatory note that I've done my share of Microsoft bashing in my time. I'd also be the last person to stand up and declare an MS box "secure" in almost any regard.
... let's not exxagerate just because it makes the article sound better.
That aside, there are enough problems with TFA that I feel the need to point out some issues with it.
Heck, let's look at the first sentence: "So about a year ago..." We're in the computer field here, folks. Have I complained about things that took place with Windows ME? Yeah, I have. But I also acknowledge that what's out today can be a lot different from what was available a year ago.
Certainly if I were writing an article about what was wrong with something, I'd check to make sure I was reviewing a recent edition. SP2, while not the ultimate solution to everyone's problems, is a darn sight better than what the author is writing about. Would I put my parents online with just the built-in firewall? Probably not long-term, no. But I certainly wouldn't be afraid that within four minutes they'd be "DOA."
Also, when the author is posting the rhetorical "why not a Mac?" questions, he throws out lines like: "I know Macs are (well, were) more expensive, even though they're really not..." which is, well, disingenuous at best. I've had several Macs, and loved them all -- but yeah, guess what? They were several times more expensive than the beige-box PCs I'd put together from my local shop, even after all the "video cards and sound cards and disk burners to make it comparable to a Mac." There are lots of reasons to love Macs
All in all, the article reads as a whiny post to me, rather than anything well thought-out. There are reasons Windows sucks in many ways, but this article just rehashes the tired old "my hardware is better than your hardware" stuff we all (I hope) got sick of years ago.
Heck, if I could get a contract with my employer that forced them to send me a check even though I screw up everything I do, I definately would go for it.
That is called a "Union". Popular for that very reason...
Longhorn will not be the answer. Managed code will not fix users from breaking their machine. One of the first and foremost reasons why computers get messed up is because of user mistakes. Using social engineering a virus tricks them into running something they shouldn't. No amount of "managed code" will protect the user from pressing the wrong buttons.
The answer has been staring at us for 20 years now. Many of the security problems in Windows are born of legacy. And ironically they were problems born from not learning lessons learned by other Operating Systems.
But in typical fashion, Microsoft is throwing more software at the flaws instead of fixing the fundemental design which created the issue in the first place. The whole chain about any virus using IE as an vector should show you this.
There are fundemental issues that were learned by other systems along time ago that MS continues to ignore and throw more software upon in an attempt to obscure the problems. So many things would go away if users never had the previliage to screw up their system easily. So many things would go away if the web browser was treated as a viewer instead of a platform for execution. So many tools could be simplified and made less confusing if they fixed the underlying problems...but they won't.
I'm sorry to sound like flamebait but I'm sick of it. Longhorn will get released and people will harass me on what in the world "code group permissions" are. People can't figure out IE's "zones" and they want me to explain to users how "code groups" work?! Thanks Microsoft...thanks for completely avoiding the problem.
No, as I recall, the anti-trust settlement between the government and MS occured something like 3 days after 9/11.
I've always been suspicious that those infamous "NSA_KEYS" had something to do with the settlement..... I could easily see MS proposing something like "drop this nonsense and we'll give you boys all the inside crypto keys you want, we'll keep Windows insecure and you can keep everyone owned.."
Check... You'll see, settlement talks during GW's tenure were even in NY as I recall!
They've been found guilty after all... No other convicted criminal is/has been allowed to keep their illegally gotten wealth after being convicted!... It's unprecidented, but TOTALLY slipped by in the hysteria after 9/11!..... There's a government connection here, they certainly wouldn't let me keep the money after robbing a bank!... It's unprecidented!
So the biggest problem with Windows is the users? The solution is clear, then, get rid of Windows users: have them all buy a Mac or install Linux.
And then we'd be hearing instead, "The biggest problem with MacOS/Linux is that Apple/Linus gave a very powerful OS to Joe Servicepack who has NO CLUE how to get it stable and keep it stable."
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Windows 98? Sucked. No arguments from anyone about that. Windows ME? Sucked. Again, little defense even from MS. Windows 2000? Not as sucky--marked improvement in stability. Windows XP? Much better. Not perfect, but glad to see it's better.
If you're going to run Windows the simple fact of life you're going to have to get used to is this: high maintenance. Well, maybe it's not all that bad...
- Patch and then patch again.
- Before you even think about plugging into the network, patch it from CDs after you re-install the OS (don't trust what comes from the factory)
- install your anti-virus and your adware prophylactics before you think about going on-line, too.
- Install Firefox and turn off that damned built-in firewall on XP2 after you install a 3rd party firewall package like ZoneAlarm.
- Don't log-in as Administrator ever and make sure you're using a 15 character password with a few unicode characters in it for all accounts.
- Install a firewall router on your LAN and work from behind it.
- Don't use the same password on any other computer.
- Update your virus DAT files daily--maybe twice a day
- Run RKDetector everynow and then just to make sure.
- Boot from a Knoppix CD once in a while to make sure you're not owned.
- If you enabled any kind of services, turn them off.
If you're running linux, you'll need to practice the same kind of vigilance. Those boxes are 0wn3d more often by "real" people instead of zombie processor or worms. In fact, crackers like Linux boxes much more than Windows because they're more fun and harder to 0wn.Macs are easily knocked over two if you're running services like SSH. A dictionary attack is trivial.
They all still suck
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Microsoft in Poland sells Windows XP for over $100 on the market. And yes, people HAVE wisened up. They use pirate copies.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
From here
Or this:
From here
Ashcroft and James didn't have their positions in Clinton's administration.
Bad Moderators, go sit in the corner and think about what you've done.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
Microsoft sucks. Mainly on the basis of being a predatory monopoly. But that is a whole other article
But windows is not that bad, not the best, but not as bad as the article paints it.
While the article attempts to make light of it, the fact remains that being the dominant player attracts the most Malware, Virii, spyware etc...
But you can avoid problems by staying away from the pillars of the monoculture:
Use Firefox instead of IE,
Use Thunderbird instead of Outlook,
Use Open Office instead of MS office,
Use Media Player Classic instead of MS WMP 10.0.
Use some other chat instead of MSN (I use Miranda and Yahoo).
90% of your problems are now gone. Everything is free. You are now mostly divorced from the monoculture. There is one last piece of the puzzle:
Personal Firewal. I use Sygate Personal.
You are now at 95%.
That last 5% relies on being careful. At this point the crap you get will most likely be installed by yourself.
That is why I always look for opens source programs first. To me nothing says secure and safe like open source.
When I get beyond open source, google is my last line of defence:
Do a google on "divx spyware" and this...
Do all of the above and you should be pretty safe. I surf lots, Download all kinds of programs/ media etc and my system is clean whenever I check it.
A couple of years ago I did nothing till I got a few viruses, then I wised up. Clean sailing since then.
This really starts to get boring. I have already written about it countless times only to get completely ignored every time I dare to point out that the emperor is naked.
I find it truly amusing that people who say that there are other advantages than only Digital Restrictions Management of using "trusted" computing and Palladium-like platforms usually talk with great enthusiasm and excitement about the new and innovative security features that have already been implemented in the 1970s for crying out loud, only better and with no strings attached. All TCPA zealots are usually completely ignorant of the existance of such operating systems as KeyKOS or EROS with formal proofs of correctness for God's sake and without all of the silliness of "trusted" computing.
And no, this is not only my opinion that we don't need DRM to get security. I am not the only one who says that everything that TCPA can possibly do to security can also be done in software, with the only exception of DRM, and in fact it has already been done, decades ago. I am not really surprised at all why it is completely ignored by the TCPA and TCI pushing industry. I am only outraged that there are so many naïve people who once again will gladly do anything no matter how dumb it is, if only their good uncle Bill Gates says that it's good for them.
Please, people, if you want to learn about real systems security, then read some old papers by Jerome Saltzer, Michael Schroeder, Norman Hardy and Jonathan Shapiro. If you want to learn about cryptography, read texts by Bruce Schneier. Microsoft is not a reliable source of knowledge in that field.
People always ask me where are the real innovations in systems security and I always say them that they are in the seventies, and have been being ingnored since then by major software vendors because people don't demand using them. This story and this thread is a great example: "Yeah, this version of Windows may suck, but still I am looking forward to buy the next one."
Wait, I've already heard it... In 1995, 1998, 2000, 2003... Oh, you mean that this time they really mean it?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
In order to be sure the computer worked in the first place, they had to install Windows to test the peripherals and other devices!
That may have been an excuse in 1999, but Knot anymore.
Fuck, 800 plus comments as of now, and no one with any real insight gets modded up? Perhaps that is the problem, in itself? No one, not one person that I saw, attempted to take the arrticle and make a decent discussion out of it.
Premise 1: We have a computer user, who is a journalist, has been using Macs for nigh on 15 years, is not extremely tech savy (Get to that in a mo') and sees that his fellow computers users, most of them on one of the millions of brands of PC and one of the various flavours of Windows, be it from Win98 to WinXP, have, in general, more problems with their computers than he does.
What does all that tell me?
I am a Mac user myself (well, I use a PC as well with Linux and Win2000 on it and I used to be a Windows shop sys admin). I agree with his OBSERVATIONS 100%. I mean observations because apart from his subjective ranting on why the world doesn't string BillG up from the rafters, which is his OPINION, his article has a good point.
I have seen and expereienced the same problems with Windows machines, until learning better, such as the 20 seconds till being hacked when first going online with WinXP and the numerous bugs in the OS over the years. Yes, I know as well as you that putting a simple router in front of the machine stops 90% of the bugs and being careful about mails and what you download and keeping up with pacthces will stop the rest, but it is a real pain and, in my experience, one has to ask the simple question: why?
In that I agree with the article. Using Windows is more complex than a Mac with OSX. Now on to the tech savy bit. The author writes about the prize that was offered for hacking the webserver Webstar, which was the only real webserver on classic Mac OS. It was never used widely in the server world and thus is not a good example of application security. The guy reveals his lack of expertise because, all those who know that OSX is based on BSD know that the webserver shipped with OSX is Apache, the same one that upsets the numbers game of OSS with respect to commercial offerings when compared to IIS.
Also, the argument that Windows has more software available is a real one, especially for gamers and for CAD and specialised business applications and the situation will stay that way while Windows has such a dominating marketshare.
And that is a reason for staying with Windows, but it isn't the reason why 90% of the world's computer using public uses PC's and Windows. That reason is simply because PC's are more available and most people have no idea that there are alternatives and are only interested in getting a "computer" with which they can chat, browse, mail, write letters, store photos, listen to music etc. Although a Mac arguably, in my experience, does all of this much better than Windows does, most people will simply go to the nearest shop and use what is there.
Ahmen.
In fact I stopped hating Microsoft (for a while) after my first 10 installs of 2000 Server and Active Directory. I fell for the hype, which was mostly true, until I used Novell Netware 6.0 with eDirectory.
eDirectory is the same, plus better and it runs on Linux, Windows and pretty much any place you want to install it. The licensing is a lot more straight-forward, it's better than Active Directory, runs on Linux and it's Novell. We love Novell now don't we?
I say the question is:
Get your Unix fortune now!
Day 1: Couldn't partition my hard drive because the Slackware installation disk doesn't have drivers for SATA disk controllers. Spent the rest of the day searching the web for work-arounds.
Day 2: Located a message board where someone had posted a custom ISO image of Slackware disk 1 with a SATA-enabled kernel. Was able to partition my hard drive and get setup running, but when it came time to pick a kernel to install, it refused to let me insert disk 1 to grab the SATA kernel. Spent the rest of the day searching the web for work-arounds.
Day 3: Finally figured out that I could put the setup process in the background, unmount the CD, eject and re-insert disk 1, then bring setup back to the foreground. Completed setup and got X running. Copied over source for 2.6.10 kernel, which I had burned to a CD. Started doing configuration, and realized there were no Linux drivers available for my wireless network card. Spent the rest of the day searching the web for solutions.
Day 4: Discovered ndiswrapper, a module that allows you to use standard Windows drivers for wireless NICs under Linux. Downloaded and built it with no problems. Tried to load my NIC drivers, and the entire OS immediately locked up. Rebooted and tried a couple more times with the same results. Spent the next 2 days searching the web for solutions.
Day 6: Finally found a single post from someone who had the same hardware revision of the same card, who had been able to get it working using the 2.6.9 kernel. Burned the source to CD and installed it on Linux box, configured, compiled, rebooted, built ndiswrapper and it worked! Unfortunately, I couldn't get an address from DHCP server. Spent the rest of the day searching the web for solutions.
Day 7: Took a day off.
Day 8: Found out that I was using the wrong command to query DHCP (I was foolishly running dhcclient instead of dhcpcd, it's so obvious!), so now DHCP works and I can connect to the net without having to assign a static IP address. I spent the next couple days configuring the video drivers, audio drivers, and getting all the modules to configure correctly at boot-up.
Day 10: Started working on getting the video-capture card drivers working. Ran into a myriad of build errors right off the bat. Did some research and learned I needed to compile some extra features into the kernel before the drivers will build. So I reconfigure, build, install, reboot... and the kernel won't load. Decide to call it a day and have a few stiff drinks before I am tempted to toss the computer out the window.
Day 11: Okay, turned out it wasn't anything tragic, I booted to an older kernel, rebuilt the new kernel, and everything worked fine. But the capture card drivers still wouldn't build. Spent the rest of the day searching the web for solutions.
Day 12: Finally realized that all info I've found about using this particular capture card refers to the fact that the user was using a 2.4 kernel instead of 2.6. So I download the kernel source, configure, build, install, reboot... and now I can build and install the capture card drivers. Unfortunately, there are no drivers available in the kernel source for my motherboard sound chipset. But I figure I can address that problem later. I do a bunch of configuring, ho
Windows crashing is obviously not so much of an inconvenience that they must storm Redmond. It's easier to push the reset button.
I used to wonder why things that annoyed me a lot about Windows, and the fact that it's crap, didn't seem to bother other people so much. Then I realised that, apart from the usual valid explanation that most have had their expectations lowered so much regarding computers that they're almost impossible to disappoint, only a small percentage of other users I know spend as much time on a computer as I do. Most people just spend maybe a few hours a day on a computer, e.g. do some simple tasks like e-mail and web, maybe a Word document or spreadsheet. So if something annoys them, it's for a short time and then they go about doing other things. But as a software developer, I basically spend nearly all my time behind the computer - a 40 hour week is rare relaxation, 60 hour week not uncommon. So when some little Windows bug annoys you, it annoys you 10 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, for months and sometimes years. I think this inherently puts a different perspective on it. It's one thing being annoyed for an hour or two then going back to what you enjoy and do all day. It's another if what you enjoy and do all day has become annoying all day due to the system you're using being crappy. Because you also 'explore' the system deeper, you also uncover far more bugs and annoyances. It's like, if I drive to work in a junky car, that sucks but only for 20 minutes a day. But if my job involves driving all day, then having a decent ride is going to make a world of difference.
It's absurd to prevent a company from install its OS on the computers it sells. We have no problem letting Microsoft put Windows on the hardware it sells.
And I'm sure you're willing to apply the same standard to Novell, Mandrake, and Red Hat, right? God forbid a software company be allowed to pre-install an OS on a system that somebody else built!
By that standard, we'd have exactly three choices in computer hardware today - IBM, Sun or Apple. It's not very FOSS-ish of you to argue that less choice in both software and hardware would be good for anybody. Besides, if MS had to, you know they'd be able to outspend any of these guys on developing consumer hardware, so they'd still be a monopoly. You'd just have less Linux out there.
MS can be blamed for a lot of things, but really, this article is just a lot of pro-Mac, anti-MS hooey. Why it gets featured on Slashdot is not really a mystery given the site's post-OS X pro-Mac bias, but that doesn't make it really newsworthy either. I don't honestly even believe the guy's story about installing Windows on his SO's machine; the 4 minute attack is lifted straight out of an article that appeared here about 4-5 months ago. Seems a bit coincidental that a self-confessed lifetime Mac user would suddenly be installing Windows XP on his SO's machine just so he can write about how awful it is.
The second half of his article just goes on at length with the standard Mac fanboy arguments that we've heard for years - it stops being about security and instead touches on the prices of Macs vs. PC's (he argues PC's are actually more expensive once you bring them "up to the level" of a comparable Mac), the user-friendliness of Windows vs. OS X, the innovativeness of Apple vs. MS. I mean seriously, blah blah blah. If I wanted to read this, I'd just search the Usenet archives from 1986.
There's no doubt that Windows XP has its share of security problems, moreso than most OS's. But there's no new info in this article and lots of annoying fanboy hyperbole. I've seen more insightful writing in Slashdot posts, and that's saying something.
I run a mix of OS X, Linux, and Win2k machines at my home office. I'm familiar with network configs on pretty much everything, and have been putting together mixed networks for over a decade.
... and looking ... ... and looking ...
...and hunting... ...and hunting...
... like setting up a 2-node network via crossover cable with IP's 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2. I've been doing that on other machines since college. I've tried FOUR times with XP machines, but never succeeded.
... it was the XP machines! Go figure. All the Win2k machines were fine.
But the first time I saw XP was when a friend brought over his shiny new laptop. He wanted to go online, so we just plugged in an ethernet cable, and I went looking for the setting to turn on ethernet and DHCP, nothing more.
"Set up new internet connection" wizard, asks if i want to set up a home connection or office connection. I don't know, I want a fscking ETHERNET connection with DHCP, but I figure the idiots in Redmond assume all offices have ethernet and all homes have dialup, so I try "office". No joy. I try "home". No joy. Both give me the same options, and are asking whether I have ISDN. (why the... in 2003? ISDN?)
After fully half an hour, I finally realized that the "new internet connection" wizard only does dialup and ISDN, but that it still somehow thinks there's a difference between homes and offices that is relevant. Can't do ethernet through the wizard, and I can't find the control panels.
Of course the owner of the laptop knows bupkus about his shiny new system.
So I started hunting for other ways to configure the network.
I finally figured it out, but it took me an honest 90 MINUTES to figure out how to unhide the icons in the control panel so that I could actually connect the damn machine. Any other computer would have taken me 30 seconds, tops.
And don't even get me started about all of last year, when my girlfriend had an XP laptop that needed to have a different static IP, plus different wireless network name, at my house and at hers. My powerbook switches between full net configurations in two seconds, straight out of the apple menu, and I can store as many as I like. Every time she brought that laptop to my place, it was a five-minute hassle to hook the f*cker up and switch the IP/DNS/gateway by hand. Every time she went home, it was a ten minute tech support phone call to get it working again.
The incompetence of Microsoft's human interface engineers is completely unreal. Instead of fixing their poorly-organized control panels that were powerful but hard to use and cluttered with unnecessary details, they simply hid them entirely and replaced them with wizards that are completely unable to configure anything for anybody.
There are things I still can't manage with it
And setting up filesharing. I can't fileshare between my XP box and any other machine in the house. I have to fscking FTP files to and from my mac with it. My last LAN party: six geeks, six PCs - and we had to distribute level files on burned CDs because we couldn't get sharing to work on more than half the machines, even with all the configs set identically. The machines that couldn't connect to the server? Why
Since XP came out, the amount of time I spend supporting friends and relatives has absolutely quadrupled. The patheticness of its' configuration design and unpredictability of its networking code is jaw-droppingly, embarassingly, bad. I mean stinky.
Hang on, I'm starting to get the urge to tell you how I REALLY feel.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
Right up front I will say that I am a Linux user. Before that, I was a Windows user. Before that I was a Mac user. And before that I was an Atari ST user. All of this is my personal experience with many OSes and not work related at all. When I was an Atari ST user, I got very used to the fact that I could easily download any software I wanted from the internet and use it. A lot of it was shareware (a concept I misunderstood at the time. I assumed I could use it without paying for it and it was just an option to pay.) and some of it was freeware. At the time, I was basically JUST a user. I didn't write my own apps or even tweak config files. I just ran the shareware, freeware and some purchased software and JUST worked. That was OK. I also played some games. That was OK too. Then I moved onto GFA Basic and also got a C compiler and learned how to start writing my own apps. That eventually was OK too.
Then I got the chance to use Macs in college. They separated me even more from the technical side of computing and threw me even farther into the JUST a user crowd. This was OK. I had a chance to pursue more creative artistic endeavors without ever having to think about the computer as anything more than a music making tool, or a graphic editing tool, or a desktop publishing tool. This was OK.
When I graduated, I found that I couldn't afford a Mac and the Atari ST world was drying up. I was employed by a desktop publishing outfit that was PC based on an associate basis after I graduated. My employer was also kind of a mentor. I told him that I was in a quandry over PC vs. Mac. As he'd clearly gone the PC route but was handling desktop layout (engineering catalogs) for really big clients, I wondered whether or not I really needed to go Mac myself. At one point, I'd told him about the memory upgrade I built on my own for my Atari ST (I wired up a board to install SIMMs in it to get up to 2.5 Megs of RAM and saved myself considerable money) and he told me that I'd definitely be able to build a PC on my own. Up to that point I was afraid it would be too hard compared to the Mac. So in August of 1994, I built my first PC and installed DOS/Win31 on it. What surprised me was the lack of non-nagged shareware for DOS and Windows compared to the Atari ST. I wound up having to spend a lot of money on commercial products from Norton, Procomm, Microsoft, Aldus and Adobe. I found that Ihad to buy new versions/upgrades almost every year to year and a half as well. I went from Win31 to Win95. I learned that there were lots of thing about the Windows world that were half-assed compared to my experience with the Mac or even the Atari ST.
I got sick of the cost of computing with Windows and I tried Linux in 1995. I already had experience with *nix from a dial up shell account I got access to in College as well as VMS. So the prospect of running a nice flexible and easy to use CLI on my own PC compared to Windows 95 was very appealing. I had actually tried Linux in 1994 but when I failed to get X to run properly, I gave up on it since at that point I really wanted my PC to work like a Mac. The "killer apps" that got me to switch to Linux were Enlightment and GIMP. They were much closer to what I was accustomed to on the Mac and the ST and even my limited Amiga experience.
So between 1995 and 1999 I gradually moved further from Windows and more solidly to Linux. Al the while I've kept tabs on the Windows camp and I will say the Windows XP is probably the best version of Windows that Microsoft has made to date. It's the most stable version and the most user friendly version. It took the nearly 20 years, but they finally achieved parity with Mac OS 7 in terms of usability. Microsoft also finally acknowledged that the artistic community (musicians, graphic designers, videographers, etc...) is important too. I would argue that they are more important than business which is something that Microsoft still seems to fail to understand, but that is another discussion. However, these
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Day 1:
....
...
I purchased the magazine which had Knoppix 3.x cd on the cover and booting my Father in laws pc ( windows , infected , dying ) proceeded to knx-hdinstall the operating system into the pc ( 3 yr old machine with router for internet connection ) . Completed the install of Knoppix Linux ( email configuration ) and rebooted. Showed In laws how to login , and mail and surf.
Day 2
Added In laws new digital camera
Day 3 through 365 : hear nothing from in laws but praise for system that works, has not been inconsistent and lets them use their computer as they "expected" to be able to use it
Day 366 : read story about user who makes poor purchasing descision and then complains about the product.
Day 367 : write sequel to story
okay the version of knoppix last year was old, but backing up their data to a usb flash drive and reinstalling to 3.7 the other day toook less than 10 minutes !
And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix.