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The Hidden Cost of Using Microsoft Software
Glyn Moody writes "Detractors of free software like to point out it's not really 'free,' and claim that its Total Cost of Ownership is often comparable with closed-source solutions if you take everything into account. And yet, despite their enthusiasm for including all the costs, they never include a very real extra that users of Microsoft's products frequently have to pay: the cost of cleaning up malware infections. For example, the UK city of Manchester has just paid out nearly $2.5 million to clean up the Conficker worm, most of which was 'a £1.2m [$2million] bill in the IT department, including £600,000 [$1 million] getting "consultancy support" to fix the problems, which including drafting in experts from Microsoft.' To make the comparisons fair, isn't it about time these often massive costs were included in TCO calculations?"
Due to the fact that windows has had a 90+% marketshare since the dawn of time, do you really think people are gonna waste time writing viruses for the 6 people using a mac or the 2 people using linux? No, they aren't. It's cost benefit analysis at it's finest, they're aiming for the larger audience, just as they are doing now with firefox which was claimed to be 893589023x more secure than IE, but as soon as it gained popularity the bugs/exploits came out of the woodwork like fucking crazy.
I personally use windows, and prefer windows, and since XP came out have never had a problem with it myself. The biggest problem with computers is they're technical machines which lend themselves to needing to have technical knowledge in order to use one safely/correctly....which the majority of people do not have.
i've worked in a MS environment for a long time and have seen a few virus infections. not once have we called in any consultants to clean up. in the worst case we have an old NT server that is infected but has to remain operational. solution was to put a free Firewall on it, block all traffic except for a few people that need access to it. still infected, but the virus can't get out. everyone else gets pulled off the network and cleaned up using the normal suite of AV and free tools availalble
What the fuck are you talking about, you fucking idiot? It makes perfect sense.
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The perfect response to a bullsh*t KDawson article like this. I know slashdot has a self-confessed linux bias, but it doesn't mean they need to make themselves look like a$$hats.
Do you know anything about SELinux? IT's not retrofitting. It's in the kernel. There's no getting around it.
Vista was much more secure than XP, and Win7 is secure, as well, but Win7 already has an exploit in UAC that can't reasonably be fixed, and Win7's not even out yet.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. If you offered facts instead of hand waving and attempted Jedi mind tricks, people might take you more seriously.
Put identity in the browser.