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Internet Explorer Drops WGA Requirement
Kelson writes "The Internet Explorer team has updated the installer for IE7. Mostly they've adjusted a few defaults and updated their tutorials, but one change stands out: The installer no longer requires Windows Genuine Advantage validation. Almost a year after its release, IE7 has yet to overtake its predecessor. Was WGA holding back a tide of potential upgrades, or did it just send people over to alternative browsers?"
you really do get a big advantage, think about all the time you won't waste searching for porn because your computer won't work from a virus you got because of IE
...run on Linux?
How about rolling out the dropping of the Windows Genuine Dis-advantage to IE6? I hate IE7, and don't want it on my system. The only time I ever use the awful IE browser is because all other browsers point-blank refuse to work with the Windows Update website / properly.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
You can edit documents, run spreadsheets (even multiply correctly!), design software/hardware, compose music, etc, just as easily in an OSS OS as Windows. And if people stopped worshipping Redmond they'd actually realize that *they* have the power to choose, not the producers.
It's not about "editing documents and spreadsheets," it's about "editing MS Office documents and spreadsheets" because Microsoft is a monopoly. Businesses aren't willing to screw around with OpenOffice if it means they might not be able to open files from clients. Microsoft wouldn't be able to charge $329 for an upgrade if they didn't have a lock on the market.
Why isn't photoshop ported to GNU/Linux? Because customers aren't demanding it enough.
No, because serious Photoshop users couldn't care less about running it on Linux. They need it to Just Work, not waste time tinkering with it.
My problem is the only reason why shitty tools and OSes exist is because we're training ourselves TO EXPECT failure.
It's ok if the program has bugs, isn't fully documented, etc, that's just the way software is.
WRONG.
Photoshop should work on any decently modern OS, especially something like a *NIX where X11 is the norm and ported everywhere. It doesn't however, because nobody demands it. And they don't demand it because customers accept that "this is the way things are." Like I said earlier, imagine if people delayed upgrades to CS because they wanted to use it on another OS. I'm sure Adobe would look into complying with the wishes of the customers. I'm not pissed off because software is written for XP, I'm pissed off because customers let suppliers tell them how to do business.
In other camps it's worse though. Most arguments in favour of Office is basically "because people use Office" well that's self-serving. And it's not at all true. Where I work we use OO.o and give customers PDFs. Seems to work just fine. Sure we have copies of Office around, but we're not forced to use it, and in fact pretty much all of the workstations are incapable of running it anyways.
People have to snap out of this bullshit apathy and actually demand reasonable standards, quality, and protection [from lockin]. I'd be cool with using XP, for instance, if it weren't so far on its own tangent. MSFT basically steals any good ideas from standards then perverts it enough so they are not 100% compatible. And they only do that so they can lock people in.
For me, I'm not anti-msft because I'm some fanboy anti-msft zealot. I'm anti-msft because I don't like being forced to use tools someone else picks for me, and more so, picks for me because they want to gouge me to line their pockets.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I've been writing/developing software for a long time now, never "needed" visual studio. You just work on the wrong software if you require VS.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.