Because if you have tried Firefox 3 it flies in contrast to other browsers, optimize the settings and compile it with high-level optimizations and you have an unmatched browser, FF 2 is a joke compared to FF 3.
This is a MS marketing ploy that has managed to devalue the brand and that is word assumptions. For example, when DOS came out it was referred to as "DOS", then it merged into PC, PC became Computer, now what was once DOS problems are now computer problems, the same thing happened to Windows, Windows problems became computer problems, OS became Windows editions, word processor became Word, E-Mail became Outlook and until recently Browser used to be IE. By MS having a monopoly, these simple words that without a monopoly would be broad definitions became un-trademarkable words, making the MS brand obsolete, which is why Apple can stick either Apple or i in front of anything and it will sell because Apple avoided that, OS != OS X Mac != PC (and because that is a computer with most MS users, it makes Macs referred to as Macs, not just computers) and it also is why MS can't make Zune or Xbox make a profit.
I honestly don't want Firefox integrating too much with Ubuntu or other Linux installs. Now while Firefox is a great browser (I usually prefer it) recently it has gotten very popular and is now more of a target for malware, while most malware doesn't target Linux, if Firefox has a flaw in all versions, it would make just adding a Linux binary to the malware to make it affect Linux, and that is something I would rather not ever have to deal with.
No, how Gecko/WebKit got so popular was because of how bad both a) ActiveX was and b) How much of a pain it was to get IE to render simple things. What we need is less bloated browsers, those that don't use up 100+ MB of RAM, along with faster browsers, as for security, as long as it is open-source it will probably be patched and up to date well enough to deal with all the problems except the one typing on the keyboard.
The "freedom" aspects are nice and everything, but without needed features or functions, you don't have jack.
Today though, for most computer users, free software wins, while some doesn't have as many features most are as feature rich or have more features, and the few that don't have as much are slowly getting them in there. 5-6 years ago you might have had a point, but today, most people really only need a a) relatively stable OS (Linux) b) Decent GUI (KDE/XFCE/GNOME) c) Secure/fast browser (Firefox) d) easy install of new software (apt-get or similar) e) Secure e-mail client (Thunderbird) f) Decent word processor (OOo) g) Simple graphics manipulation (The GIMP, and no, before you ask the average person has no need for photoshop) h) low cost (free for Linux) all those can be done with -nearly- 100% free software (you might need some non-free firmware for some parts and Flash/Java that aren't 100% free)
I know you are sarcastic, but really although China has a ton of censorship, the US though says it doesn't have censorship and for the most part people believe that, China on the other hand most people know that it censors and will find ways around it. For the US most are blissfully unaware....
Exactly, MS stands mostly to attempt to prove that free software can't exist, while doing that they managed to run away from where all the innovation is happening, where it has been happening for the last 20 or more years: the Homebrew/Hacker/Hobbyist scene. Apple saw this, took BSD, cleaned up the kernel a bit, took some free utilities and are now selling a very successful GUI as OS X. MS has to re-invent the wheel with every OS to make it look "new" and distance itself from the free community. This leads to failures such as Vista where it takes a *5*+ year development cycle to produce an OS that is more buggy then most alpha software in the free community. Note to Bill and Steve Ballmer, you can't run a company that ignores a large part of where all real innovation takes place, its ignorent and stupid to act that way.
Standard Vista to standard Ubuntu? I would think that Ubuntu would be much faster, now when you compare Vista with many things turned off and edited settings to standard Ubuntu there might be a difference but standard (not OEM) Vista to Ubuntu standard usually Ubuntu will be faster.
Most problems are with backwards-compatibility, which you shouldn't really expect anyway.
Why not? Generally the reasons that people use Windows when they know there is Linux is because of legacy apps, if they don't work in Vista there is no need to move from XP and not move to Linux/OS X. On most other OSes unless there has been a major change (Like 9X to NT, major changes in scripting languages such as python, PPC to x86) you should expect backwards compatibility. With Linux you don't have that problem, most apps written 3 years ago for the first Ubuntu will work fine with 8.04 or any other distro. With OS X the OS had such a major change from PPC classic mac based to x86 Unix-based you can't make a claim of backwards compatibility but in general there's no reason to expect that NT X App shouldn't run on NT X+1. MS killing backwards compatibility is killing the entire MS monopoly and moving people to OS X or Linux.
People I know who have it pre-loaded on their new laptops seem to be okay with it.
I doubt they know though if they would install XP or Linux on there the laptop would absolutely fly and that's why they don't seem to have problems with it, if they would install XP or Linux and compare it to Vista they would find Vista is a major slow down on their computer.
Which is why you use the third OS... Linux. Despite having little "official" drivers for things, it sure seems to be able to read just about every file format/filesystem out there.
I am going off the article, where usually if a college doesn't recommend their students to upgrade usually the service pack isn't that stable or for some reason they are a MS hater. I myself don't have a Vista machine however I do lots of troubleshooting/repair on them and I have to say its about the worst OS, haven't seen any with the new SP though.
Except for say UAC, all the DRM and the fact that the thing runs slower on more powerful hardware then XP?
Of course if all you read is slashdot you would also think that NT is just a unix wannabe
It employs many design concepts from *Nix that weren't present in 9X so in a way it is very similar to Unix. Now granted there are only a finite way of solving problems present in Windows 9X so making it more Unix like is one of the ways to make it more secure.
2000 an expensive upgrade for those who already have 95 and dont need it
2000 probably won't run on the same hardware that 95 ran on, so yes they don't need what they can't run.
and that XP is just 2000 with fisher price colors
It is, it is basically Windows 2K with a shiny theme on it much like how Vista is like XP with a bunch of crap thrown on it and a shiny GUI.
A bit off topic, but I can't help replying to such blatant lies.
The news here has to be those companies that jumps to SP1 without checking up on any risks with that.
Most companies are not using Vista. Most are still using XP or Windows 2K. The companies that are using Vista generally are smaller companies that aren't tech-based.
Because if the university runs on Windows, eventually they guess they will have to either migrate to OS X/Linux or accept Vista. Vista will eventually be accepted when 3-4 gigs of RAM becomes common and 3.0 GHZ CPUs are common also. It was the same with XP except that XP was an upgrade from ME while Vista is a downgrade from XP.
I know of companies running OS X, companies running Linux servers, who all adopt the wait-and-see approach.
Yes, but companies need much much more stability then college students. Most OS X upgrades are just fine and only usually break apps that modify the OS a lot, the same could be said though with adding random repositories to Ubuntu/Debian and the OS will break sometimes on installing the next version. But generally, I wouldn't recommend a Ubuntu user not upgrade to 8.04 when it comes out, nor would I recommend a Mac user not going to Leopard. However it seems that Vista SP1 is bad enough to warrent students not to upgrade, now that is saying something.
Which is why I put standards in quotes, because its not really a standard, its more or less a memory dump of MS's computer at the time they decided to propose it.
I don't think it means a thing for honesty, it might mean there is less corporate corruption going on but really how is it "honest"? OOXML really makes no difference to the average IT company except for benefits of not having to go through an overpriced, closed vendor (MS) to get the "standards".
If not everything is open source, you never know the company's true motives, if really back and forward buttons weren't such a big deal why aren't they open source too? Or is this just Apple using the open source community KHTML and not planning on releasing much back into the community (I realize so far they have been good with WebKit) so why wouldn't the entire application be open source if this wasn't a big deal?
Its deceptive is what it is. When you download an update you don't expect to get extra programs installed, you expect to get patches applied to the program you are updating. And its not like in Linux where all that might also get updated is your version of say Python, this is an entire different application. br>
As far as the iPod monopoly goes--it doesn't. iTunes (and Apple software) isn't the only way to manage your iPod, and Apple doesn't intentionally make it hard for other software to compete.
Oh yes, as if adding a hash to stop third-party applications isn't "intentionally making it hard" http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/1831236 I don't know what is. Now granted that, has been broken but still it is no excuse for Apple to decide to block third-party applications from using the iPod.
Users shouldn't second guess themselves when clicking "OK" on a software update dialog. If they're afraid of software update services, it'll be impossible for vendors to keep them safe with security and stability updates.
Exactly. Why do you think there are so many unpatched Windows installs? Because MS tries to push out "updates" not as patches but as entire different versions. Think of IE6 to IE7, to the person who is scared of the computer they have and doesn't know how to actually use a computer but just what the little icons mean, they might decide to never ever update their computer. Now when real patches come along that patch some security flaw, they refuse them thinking that it will change the look/feel of their system. Then they look at the new "updates" to Windows and Office, (Vista and Office 2007) and decide that they don't want them and keep disabling updates thinking that Office 2000 will suddenly morph into 2007 and XP into Vista.
Safari isn't much better then IE though. Even though parts of it are open source (WebKit) it still remains a proprietary, closed browser. What happens if Apple decides to "Embrace and Extend" like MS did? We have a second IE, it seems that whenever a company can gain so much marketshare they can totally throw standards out and start developing incompatible technologies. Keep the market competitive, small market shares for several compatible browsers is better then large marketshares for several incompatible browsers (such as IE and Firefox)
20 year old PCs break easily. If the HD hasn't already crashed, the RAM corrupted or the floppy disk drive broke, it generally will soon. Even if a console breaks its cheap and easy to replace (get one for like $25 on eBay) whereas a computer is much harder to replace and far more expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
Because if you have tried Firefox 3 it flies in contrast to other browsers, optimize the settings and compile it with high-level optimizations and you have an unmatched browser, FF 2 is a joke compared to FF 3.
This is a MS marketing ploy that has managed to devalue the brand and that is word assumptions. For example, when DOS came out it was referred to as "DOS", then it merged into PC, PC became Computer, now what was once DOS problems are now computer problems, the same thing happened to Windows, Windows problems became computer problems, OS became Windows editions, word processor became Word, E-Mail became Outlook and until recently Browser used to be IE. By MS having a monopoly, these simple words that without a monopoly would be broad definitions became un-trademarkable words, making the MS brand obsolete, which is why Apple can stick either Apple or i in front of anything and it will sell because Apple avoided that, OS != OS X Mac != PC (and because that is a computer with most MS users, it makes Macs referred to as Macs, not just computers) and it also is why MS can't make Zune or Xbox make a profit.
I honestly don't want Firefox integrating too much with Ubuntu or other Linux installs. Now while Firefox is a great browser (I usually prefer it) recently it has gotten very popular and is now more of a target for malware, while most malware doesn't target Linux, if Firefox has a flaw in all versions, it would make just adding a Linux binary to the malware to make it affect Linux, and that is something I would rather not ever have to deal with.
No, how Gecko/WebKit got so popular was because of how bad both a) ActiveX was and b) How much of a pain it was to get IE to render simple things. What we need is less bloated browsers, those that don't use up 100+ MB of RAM, along with faster browsers, as for security, as long as it is open-source it will probably be patched and up to date well enough to deal with all the problems except the one typing on the keyboard.
Today though, for most computer users, free software wins, while some doesn't have as many features most are as feature rich or have more features, and the few that don't have as much are slowly getting them in there. 5-6 years ago you might have had a point, but today, most people really only need a a) relatively stable OS (Linux) b) Decent GUI (KDE/XFCE/GNOME) c) Secure/fast browser (Firefox) d) easy install of new software (apt-get or similar) e) Secure e-mail client (Thunderbird) f) Decent word processor (OOo) g) Simple graphics manipulation (The GIMP, and no, before you ask the average person has no need for photoshop) h) low cost (free for Linux) all those can be done with -nearly- 100% free software (you might need some non-free firmware for some parts and Flash/Java that aren't 100% free)
I know you are sarcastic, but really although China has a ton of censorship, the US though says it doesn't have censorship and for the most part people believe that, China on the other hand most people know that it censors and will find ways around it. For the US most are blissfully unaware....
Exactly, MS stands mostly to attempt to prove that free software can't exist, while doing that they managed to run away from where all the innovation is happening, where it has been happening for the last 20 or more years: the Homebrew/Hacker/Hobbyist scene. Apple saw this, took BSD, cleaned up the kernel a bit, took some free utilities and are now selling a very successful GUI as OS X. MS has to re-invent the wheel with every OS to make it look "new" and distance itself from the free community. This leads to failures such as Vista where it takes a *5*+ year development cycle to produce an OS that is more buggy then most alpha software in the free community. Note to Bill and Steve Ballmer, you can't run a company that ignores a large part of where all real innovation takes place, its ignorent and stupid to act that way.
Standard Vista to standard Ubuntu? I would think that Ubuntu would be much faster, now when you compare Vista with many things turned off and edited settings to standard Ubuntu there might be a difference but standard (not OEM) Vista to Ubuntu standard usually Ubuntu will be faster.
Why not? Generally the reasons that people use Windows when they know there is Linux is because of legacy apps, if they don't work in Vista there is no need to move from XP and not move to Linux/OS X. On most other OSes unless there has been a major change (Like 9X to NT, major changes in scripting languages such as python, PPC to x86) you should expect backwards compatibility. With Linux you don't have that problem, most apps written 3 years ago for the first Ubuntu will work fine with 8.04 or any other distro. With OS X the OS had such a major change from PPC classic mac based to x86 Unix-based you can't make a claim of backwards compatibility but in general there's no reason to expect that NT X App shouldn't run on NT X+1. MS killing backwards compatibility is killing the entire MS monopoly and moving people to OS X or Linux.
I doubt they know though if they would install XP or Linux on there the laptop would absolutely fly and that's why they don't seem to have problems with it, if they would install XP or Linux and compare it to Vista they would find Vista is a major slow down on their computer.
kde.org/blog/archives/496-iPod-Classic-Will-Be-Supported.html http://abhay-techzone.blogspot.com/2007/11/using-ipod-touch-iphone-with-amarok.html old news, while newer ones might not be able to work, currently they work fine. Stop spreading FUD.
Which is why you use the third OS... Linux. Despite having little "official" drivers for things, it sure seems to be able to read just about every file format/filesystem out there.
The 3 GHZ Pentium 4s were common, today though its hard to get 3 GHZ dual/quad core CPUs.
I am going off the article, where usually if a college doesn't recommend their students to upgrade usually the service pack isn't that stable or for some reason they are a MS hater. I myself don't have a Vista machine however I do lots of troubleshooting/repair on them and I have to say its about the worst OS, haven't seen any with the new SP though.
Except for say UAC, all the DRM and the fact that the thing runs slower on more powerful hardware then XP?
Of course if all you read is slashdot you would also think that NT is just a unix wannabe
It employs many design concepts from *Nix that weren't present in 9X so in a way it is very similar to Unix. Now granted there are only a finite way of solving problems present in Windows 9X so making it more Unix like is one of the ways to make it more secure.
2000 an expensive upgrade for those who already have 95 and dont need it
2000 probably won't run on the same hardware that 95 ran on, so yes they don't need what they can't run.
and that XP is just 2000 with fisher price colors
It is, it is basically Windows 2K with a shiny theme on it much like how Vista is like XP with a bunch of crap thrown on it and a shiny GUI.
A bit off topic, but I can't help replying to such blatant lies.
Most companies are not using Vista. Most are still using XP or Windows 2K. The companies that are using Vista generally are smaller companies that aren't tech-based.
Because if the university runs on Windows, eventually they guess they will have to either migrate to OS X/Linux or accept Vista. Vista will eventually be accepted when 3-4 gigs of RAM becomes common and 3.0 GHZ CPUs are common also. It was the same with XP except that XP was an upgrade from ME while Vista is a downgrade from XP.
Yes, but companies need much much more stability then college students. Most OS X upgrades are just fine and only usually break apps that modify the OS a lot, the same could be said though with adding random repositories to Ubuntu/Debian and the OS will break sometimes on installing the next version. But generally, I wouldn't recommend a Ubuntu user not upgrade to 8.04 when it comes out, nor would I recommend a Mac user not going to Leopard. However it seems that Vista SP1 is bad enough to warrent students not to upgrade, now that is saying something.
Which is why I put standards in quotes, because its not really a standard, its more or less a memory dump of MS's computer at the time they decided to propose it.
I don't think it means a thing for honesty, it might mean there is less corporate corruption going on but really how is it "honest"? OOXML really makes no difference to the average IT company except for benefits of not having to go through an overpriced, closed vendor (MS) to get the "standards".
If not everything is open source, you never know the company's true motives, if really back and forward buttons weren't such a big deal why aren't they open source too? Or is this just Apple using the open source community KHTML and not planning on releasing much back into the community (I realize so far they have been good with WebKit) so why wouldn't the entire application be open source if this wasn't a big deal?
br> As far as the iPod monopoly goes--it doesn't. iTunes (and Apple software) isn't the only way to manage your iPod, and Apple doesn't intentionally make it hard for other software to compete.
Oh yes, as if adding a hash to stop third-party applications isn't "intentionally making it hard" http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/1831236 I don't know what is. Now granted that, has been broken but still it is no excuse for Apple to decide to block third-party applications from using the iPod.
Exactly. Why do you think there are so many unpatched Windows installs? Because MS tries to push out "updates" not as patches but as entire different versions. Think of IE6 to IE7, to the person who is scared of the computer they have and doesn't know how to actually use a computer but just what the little icons mean, they might decide to never ever update their computer. Now when real patches come along that patch some security flaw, they refuse them thinking that it will change the look/feel of their system. Then they look at the new "updates" to Windows and Office, (Vista and Office 2007) and decide that they don't want them and keep disabling updates thinking that Office 2000 will suddenly morph into 2007 and XP into Vista.
Safari isn't much better then IE though. Even though parts of it are open source (WebKit) it still remains a proprietary, closed browser. What happens if Apple decides to "Embrace and Extend" like MS did? We have a second IE, it seems that whenever a company can gain so much marketshare they can totally throw standards out and start developing incompatible technologies. Keep the market competitive, small market shares for several compatible browsers is better then large marketshares for several incompatible browsers (such as IE and Firefox)
20 year old PCs break easily. If the HD hasn't already crashed, the RAM corrupted or the floppy disk drive broke, it generally will soon. Even if a console breaks its cheap and easy to replace (get one for like $25 on eBay) whereas a computer is much harder to replace and far more expensive.