also going to agree. Web browsing would be easy, since Firefox performs almost identical to Firefox on XP. Same Goes with Thunderbird. LibreOffice and OpenOffice would probably be the hardest transition and most likely the deal breaker.
It's great for simple spreadsheets and documents, but when they start asking about office options that they use almost everyday, like mail merging address labels, either you, their's or both of your heads will explode either in sheer confusion or rage due to the sheer complexity of a process that in word is literally done in less then 15 mouse clicks.
If I had to make a call there, it would be Ad Supported. Although MS is getting very ad happy with their metro apps as of late. Hell even Solitaire is coming with Ad's now. At least so far they've been static images which i'm ok with more than virus infected flash ads. The same goes with banner ads for Android apps as well.
I define Adware as an application installed by a third party that is not associated directly with the downloaded app in any way and disrupts your experience outside of that particular app. A good example would be bundleware installers that love to install VLC media player for you as well as "Value added apps to enhance your experience" (if you want to see what I mean, Search for VLC media player in Google and Bing and click on one of the ads) or ads in the android notification bar popping up every 5 minutes.
Now this is where it gets dicey. What if the developer Wants you to see ads because its their revenue stream? Fine, but only show the ads when I'm directly using the app. I don't want you making money off me when I'm browsing the web by covering up malware infected website ads with malware infected banners (BTW I use Adblock plus for this reason), or annoy me about how I need to pay you to fix my 23409 registry errors every 5 minutes by about 12 different registry scanners running on my machine at once sucking down CPU time to scan. Or notify me that there's this great game I need to download from Google play every five seconds.
I wouldn't call the Bing Bar (or the Bing desktop for that matter) Adware per say simply because it doesn't attempt to sell anything, but it definitely is bundleware and needs to die in a fire like the rest of the toolbar garbage.
That's going to be the real test for this initiative. Is it going to at least ask you remove the more legitimate toolbars like Ask, Bing Yahoo and Google Toolbars or is it going to ignore them. If it ignores them, Conduit's going to have a field day suing the hell out of MS for blocking their "Non harming" toolbar while ignoring the others. If they do detect them they better make sure Bing Bar is on the list or Google will be screaming "Antitrust" until the cows come home
It's about time they start doing something about adware. At least put that "Low Threat" section in MSE to good use.
On the other hand, if they detect adware the same way the other AV's do, I wont be out of a day job. The only thing I've found that removes adware is ADWCleaner and the Junkware Removal Tool. The rest either don't detect it all, Detect only the most virulent or damaging forms of it, or detect it and won't remove it.
$9,000,000.00 / (85% of 800000 or 680000) = $12.34 Per Machine / Yr.
Assuming that the PC's are running XP on XP period machines, and would either have to be replaced or upgraded, $12 is a bargain. I don't think you could even license windows at that price. Although that doesn't excuse the fact that the money could have been used for more constructive purposes like software modernization so that you wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
I don't see where Linux would be that much of a better benefit for ATM's since it's lifecycle is typically short as well.
XP is kind of a enigma for MS, since they supported far longer than most of their OS'es (I think windows NT and maybe DOS had a longer support cycle) Lifecycle was one of the reasons OS/2 survived so long since IBM supported it for 10 years.
In the Linux world, the longest LTS distro support I've seen is 5 years. Sure you can upgrade Linux easier than Windows in many cases but you may still run into issues from one kernel update to the next.
Best practice would be the ATM Vendors (Diebold, NCR, ETC) supporting their own RTOS build specifically designed only for ATM use, and Hardened to the hilt for financial transactions.
There are still a ton of windows XP PC's out there capable of running 8.1. Any Core 2 (and some last gen P4's) or Athlon 64 PCs or Higher will run it fine as long as it's got at least 2GB of RAM, but it's the transition that's the pain, especially since MS removed Windows Easy Transfer From Windows 8.1
There is talk that MS is going to release a Free edition of Windows 8.1, but it will most likely be gimped or restricted on who can install the OS, such as Large OEM's only. If they played their cards correctly (Like add the start menu back) they could get those users to convert and get some windows 8.1 share, but since that's not happening soon enough...
Probably as much as the Keurig Vue, which has pretty much bombed in the marketplace.
In fact, you would think Keurig would have learned from Vue sales that if you make a machine that's not compatible with existing K cups, it doesn't sell. Just adding K cup functionally to the Vue system out of the box (without some third party adapter) would have made them sell like hotcakes and give them the patent encumbered Vue Cups to upsell, instead their going to make a third (Technically forth if you count the Rivo) incompatible brewer that will most likely not accept previous generation cups and wonder why they can't sell the thing but the K cup units fly off the shelves.
Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if they stop making K cup machines altogether and really screw themselves over.
Ask TWC how that worked for them. One of the reasons they're a buyout target is because of the CBS blackout.
if CableCo's were smart, they would sneak a semi a-la-Carte Package (for example, a Disney Package, a Viacom package, a CBS Package, ETC) on content providers contract renewals and execute it in the program lineup. Any time the CP's decide to raise rates, the CableCo's simply nod their head "Sure!!" and proceed to immediately raise the rate on just the affected package 1:1. When Sub's Cancel, the CP's will get less because Less people actually get the content now (which can now be officially documented since the CableCo's are A-La-Carte Now), and they'll think twice before raising rates.
Now I know this will never happen, because most of those contracts explicitly state you cannot do this sort of a-la-carte tiering, but that's where the lawyer sneakiness comes in.
Considering that he is sort of an icon to nerds and is dying of a recently announced disease, I would considering it newsworthy.
Although I doubt that smoking is the main reason he has COPD now considering he stopped smoking so long ago, but it may have been a contributing factor. He was an avid Photographer, and if he did a lot of darkroom work, he could have contracted the disease from breathing in the Caustic Developer Chemicals.
I've been on this site for a long time. My Low 6 digit number should be a testament of how long I've been on this site. Hell I don't Even use Deathlizard any more as my handle on any site but this one. but I can tell you what my Display Options are set to.
1) I Use the Classic Interface because I like the classic Interface. It's simple, Loads fast, and gets me my News For Nerds and Stuff that Matters.
2) I use the Classic Discussion system, and not the one that was reworked the last time the site had a modernization.
What makes this site special is the simple fact that it is so customizable. I don't have to update my look of the site but others that want to can get the new whiz bang tech site that the kiddiez crave. I can keep it the way I want and the Kids get the new wave look because they are either not logged in or they signed up with a new account with the look turned on by default.
I know it would be a pain to maintain both looks, especially since it looks like they want to do away with the generic icons as news points and replace it with stock photos, but I can't imagine it being so hard to maintain when it's pretty much been the same for over 15 years now and pulls data from the same database, and I think it would be worth maintaining rather than lose your user base to other options or even to a forked, Slashcode running, classic slashdot site.
Had the same issues with Seagate 500gb Laptop drives. We had anywhere between 10-25% failure rates on those on a 400 laptop batch. Hitachi's were lower (about 8 to 15% on the worst batch) but not much in the 7200 spindle speed. 5400 Hitachi's on the other hand were rock solid (I can remember replacing only 3 in a 400 Laptop batch), and I would take those Seagates over Fujitsu's or Toshibas any day. Hell one batch of Fuji's back in 2003 had an almost 50-70% failure rate over three years. At least you had a decent chance of getting data from a failing Seagate. Most other drives were unreadable when they failed.
My last straw with Seagate was when my 2GB External Ghost image drive failed with our historical backups on it. It would read and write, but it was pause for 2-30 seconds randomly clicking the whole time. When I replaced it with a RAID External I couldn't get the drive RMA'd because it wouldn't fail Seagate Diagnostics (although it would fail smart tests from other test software like HDAT2) It finally gave me a Seagate code when I tested it non stop for 3 weeks.
Apparently it must not be an competitive marketplace or they just want to find a convenient way of going out of business, since the Local Cable company (if they have one) is going to make a killing there.
Hell, Verizon HomeFusion is about the same price as the 25GB plan. You can drop your phone line, It'll blow the doors off DSL speeds, and it can be added to a share everything plan so the data can be shared with a 4G hotspot/Phone. If you're going to pay that much you might as well get something that's going to travel and be faster.
No. what it should do is act like android plugins and pop a security warning if any permission level changes between updates, or if it modifies settings.
Disabling auto update may add more problems if the app has bugs that can be exploited. I'd rather have Chrome disable the plugin if permissions change instead of removing auto update altogether.
On another note. why is this all of a sudden news now? I've been seeing all of these Virus ads and plugins posts on slashdot this week and I've been seeing this stuff going in chrome for Months now. Hell 60-70% of my service calls are from this stuff.
Hell, I had two Chromebooks come in infected and you can't just remove the extension on a chromebook. You basicially have to log into google using Chrome on a windows PC, Infect that chrome, disinfect it using ADWCleaner or JRT to remove the extension enough in chrome so it deletes the plugin in your cloud settings, and reset the Chromebook to factory (otherwise it comes back). So much for "Chromebooks don't get viruses", although Google now has a browser reset button (The two chromebooks were infected before this feature was added in the WIndows builds) so that might make it easier to remove. I sure hope so for Chromebook's sake.
Google. You Seriously need to start monitoring and cracking down on this stuff ASAP. And start paying attention to your damn Google ads! I'm sick of people installing buldleware virii everytime they search for any of the following:
Firefox Google Chrome (Thats right! They're hijacking your OWN BROWSER'S ADS ON YOUR OWN SEARCH ENGINE!) Internet Explorer Windows Media Player Openoffice/Libreoffice ETC VLC Media Player 7ZIP Quicktime/Itunes ETC ETC. (I can literally go on forever with this list. Just as a rule of thumb, if it's a popular software download, it's most likely been install hijacked by a Virus Inc.)
Anytime anyone uses adwords to get listed on a legitimate app, and it doesn't go to the Legitimate program's website, I want a big red light to start blinking with 150DB Sirens going off and a Evil Sounding voice that says WARNING!! ADWORDS HIJACK DETECTED!! going down somewhere in your security dept so your security team scours their ad submission in fear of the big red light of screaming Terror going off. And they better damn well ban that entire domain and any subdomains from ALL ADS FOR LIFE! Either Get Tough and declare war on spam and virus pushers or get steamrolled!
The same goes for you too MS. Fix Bing! See what Google is doing? You're doing the exact same thing and need the exact same remidies! Hell! Slahdot? Want a Bash MS Story for your front page? There's malicious apps in the Windows 8 Store! Just open up the store, search for "getdesktopapp" and see the Virus and Adware crap MS's Own Store is infecting people with! Now get on bashing M$ like you love to do. Chop Chop!
And as for Antivirus firms. (And frankly, I don't care who you are. You ALL suck when it comes to this) Wake The F Up! You detect Gator, A 10 year old adware/spyware mess as a virus, but Conduit SearchProtect is totally legitimate and in no way is a threat to computer users even though it does thins that are 10 times worse than anything Claria did? BS! Wake Up, Grow a Pair and start doing your damn job! It's a shame that the only people that detect these things is the people behind ADWCleaner and the Junkware Removal Tool (thanks BTW for making these two tools since noone else detects adware anymore). Adware is a VIrus now. Bundleware is a Virus. Start detecting and removing this crap as malware like you should! It's real easy to find out what to detect. If you install a wanted program (like Adobe reader), and it installs Something the person didn't want (like Ask Toolbar, or whatever garbageware of the day adobe gets paid to infect PC's with) It's malicious and should be flagged as such. I don't care if it's got a Checkmark to not install or who the hell is pushing the junkware or who the junkware creator is. the practice is bad and needs to die.
Staying with my original theme of copying my old post...
If they were serious about a revolt, or serious about sending a message to MS, they should go to CES with all of their PC's running Windows 7 / Full Featured Linux / ChromeOS, ETC... or nothing but Android Tablets.
Sure why not. Here was my last comment minus the revolt stuff. Hopefully We get a few more of these articles. The.NET Firefox plugin dupes needs some competition.
Adding android on an OS that's already got a Tablet interface is akin of adding spinner rimmed wheels to the hood of a car because people don't like standard rims. It's Basically Splashtop OS for 2014. It doesn't solve any problem, hell it probably makes it worse since Android isn't exactly designed for desktop use either
If they were serious about a revolt, or serious about sending a message to MS, they should go to CES with all of their PC's running Windows 7 / Full Featured Linux / ChromeOS, ETC... or nothing but Android Tablets.
Adding android on an OS that's already got a Tablet interface is akin of adding spinner rimmed wheels to the hood of a car because people don't like standard rims. It's Basically Splashtop OS for 2014. It doesn't solve any problem, hell it probably makes it worse since Android isn't exactly designed for desktop use either
They did it for Windows 2000. I read somewhere that MS charged a big company running windows 2000 at the time over $10000 for a single patch after windows 2000 expired.
The best option is to get rid of it. I dealt with this issue back when windows 2000 went EOL (primarily with scientific equipment that would lose certification if tampered with) and believe me you don't want to go there if you can avoid it. You can avoid it if the system is not network facing and you don't use media like USB drives on it. But any level of network from Internet to Sneakernet puts you at risk.
The only major problem I've run into compatibility when it comes to transitioning programs windows XP to 7 is 64Bit and UAC. Disabling UAC, enabling the Administrator account, and using the 32Bit version of 7 will 99/100 times get an old program to run in 7 using XP compatibility mode, and if it still doesn't work, then there's windows XP mode (although that can get infected, you can minimize the impact with NAT or Disabling Network support.)
Hardware is a different story. Many XP drivers will install in 32bit 7 but they can cause bluescreens and the like. I've honestly had better luck with Vista in this regard. Again with UAC Turned off.
Setting your answering machine to 6 rings seems to work for us. they usually stop after the 4th ring and flag the number as dead since they assume everybody has an answering machine.
Another option is to use a thrid party call screener like nomorobo or Google Voice, but I've never tried those so YMMV.
If Slashdot put as much effort in denouncing that plugin into Actual malicious plugins like Conduit, Dealio and the like, the world would be a better place.
Honestly, I can't believe MS is even entertaining him as CEO. Their almost better putting Apotheker or Fiorina on the list.
I swear to god Microsoft has been infected by some clinical, idocracy level of Stupid or Brain Eating Slugs, and this is coming from someone that has a long Slashdot history of Defending Microsoft on this site. In the past year they have managed to piss off just about every customer sector they have to the limit at a time when they cant afford to lose customers and are the most vulnerable in decades to losing said customers to alternatives. They need to stop screwing around and start listening to their customers and fix the issues they keep bringing up instead of "innovating" themselves into oblivion.
As someone else already pointed out, It's the Ads. If you have ad blocker the top site will be the correct one. Many people do not differentiate between the ads and the real links, so they click on the first link that shows up, downloades it, and get hammered. This is why Ad blocking is so important these days, because Ad firms won't do the job of filtering malicious ads
Right now, in the past 30 days, I've dealt with 6 Viruses like Sirifef, TDSS and various FBI Viruses. This week alone, I've cleaned 9 PC's that had Drive By Downloader Infections and I usually keep that pace every week. I'd say I've cleaned roughly 30+ this past 30 days. If that's not a sign where things are going I don't know what is.
Slashdot Mirror
Writes like paper
Syncs to evernote
Saves everything to pdf and can easily be printed for paper archival
also going to agree. Web browsing would be easy, since Firefox performs almost identical to Firefox on XP. Same Goes with Thunderbird. LibreOffice and OpenOffice would probably be the hardest transition and most likely the deal breaker.
It's great for simple spreadsheets and documents, but when they start asking about office options that they use almost everyday, like mail merging address labels, either you, their's or both of your heads will explode either in sheer confusion or rage due to the sheer complexity of a process that in word is literally done in less then 15 mouse clicks.
If I had to make a call there, it would be Ad Supported. Although MS is getting very ad happy with their metro apps as of late. Hell even Solitaire is coming with Ad's now. At least so far they've been static images which i'm ok with more than virus infected flash ads. The same goes with banner ads for Android apps as well.
I define Adware as an application installed by a third party that is not associated directly with the downloaded app in any way and disrupts your experience outside of that particular app. A good example would be bundleware installers that love to install VLC media player for you as well as "Value added apps to enhance your experience" (if you want to see what I mean, Search for VLC media player in Google and Bing and click on one of the ads) or ads in the android notification bar popping up every 5 minutes.
Now this is where it gets dicey. What if the developer Wants you to see ads because its their revenue stream? Fine, but only show the ads when I'm directly using the app. I don't want you making money off me when I'm browsing the web by covering up malware infected website ads with malware infected banners (BTW I use Adblock plus for this reason), or annoy me about how I need to pay you to fix my 23409 registry errors every 5 minutes by about 12 different registry scanners running on my machine at once sucking down CPU time to scan. Or notify me that there's this great game I need to download from Google play every five seconds.
I wouldn't call the Bing Bar (or the Bing desktop for that matter) Adware per say simply because it doesn't attempt to sell anything, but it definitely is bundleware and needs to die in a fire like the rest of the toolbar garbage.
That's going to be the real test for this initiative. Is it going to at least ask you remove the more legitimate toolbars like Ask, Bing Yahoo and Google Toolbars or is it going to ignore them. If it ignores them, Conduit's going to have a field day suing the hell out of MS for blocking their "Non harming" toolbar while ignoring the others. If they do detect them they better make sure Bing Bar is on the list or Google will be screaming "Antitrust" until the cows come home
It's about time they start doing something about adware. At least put that "Low Threat" section in MSE to good use.
On the other hand, if they detect adware the same way the other AV's do, I wont be out of a day job. The only thing I've found that removes adware is ADWCleaner and the Junkware Removal Tool. The rest either don't detect it all, Detect only the most virulent or damaging forms of it, or detect it and won't remove it.
Technically it's not that bad.
$9,000,000.00 / (85% of 800000 or 680000) = $12.34 Per Machine / Yr.
Assuming that the PC's are running XP on XP period machines, and would either have to be replaced or upgraded, $12 is a bargain. I don't think you could even license windows at that price. Although that doesn't excuse the fact that the money could have been used for more constructive purposes like software modernization so that you wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.
Yep. just noticed this. It's been awhile since I looked at a Enterprise Distro but it looks like RHEL and Suse both go 10 years or more now.
Regardless, If I had to make a call an RTOS would still be a better choice. More control, less overhead and better reliability.
I don't see where Linux would be that much of a better benefit for ATM's since it's lifecycle is typically short as well.
XP is kind of a enigma for MS, since they supported far longer than most of their OS'es (I think windows NT and maybe DOS had a longer support cycle) Lifecycle was one of the reasons OS/2 survived so long since IBM supported it for 10 years.
In the Linux world, the longest LTS distro support I've seen is 5 years. Sure you can upgrade Linux easier than Windows in many cases but you may still run into issues from one kernel update to the next.
Best practice would be the ATM Vendors (Diebold, NCR, ETC) supporting their own RTOS build specifically designed only for ATM use, and Hardened to the hilt for financial transactions.
There are still a ton of windows XP PC's out there capable of running 8.1. Any Core 2 (and some last gen P4's) or Athlon 64 PCs or Higher will run it fine as long as it's got at least 2GB of RAM, but it's the transition that's the pain, especially since MS removed Windows Easy Transfer From Windows 8.1
There is talk that MS is going to release a Free edition of Windows 8.1, but it will most likely be gimped or restricted on who can install the OS, such as Large OEM's only. If they played their cards correctly (Like add the start menu back) they could get those users to convert and get some windows 8.1 share, but since that's not happening soon enough...
Probably as much as the Keurig Vue, which has pretty much bombed in the marketplace.
In fact, you would think Keurig would have learned from Vue sales that if you make a machine that's not compatible with existing K cups, it doesn't sell. Just adding K cup functionally to the Vue system out of the box (without some third party adapter) would have made them sell like hotcakes and give them the patent encumbered Vue Cups to upsell, instead their going to make a third (Technically forth if you count the Rivo) incompatible brewer that will most likely not accept previous generation cups and wonder why they can't sell the thing but the K cup units fly off the shelves.
Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if they stop making K cup machines altogether and really screw themselves over.
Ask TWC how that worked for them. One of the reasons they're a buyout target is because of the CBS blackout.
if CableCo's were smart, they would sneak a semi a-la-Carte Package (for example, a Disney Package, a Viacom package, a CBS Package, ETC) on content providers contract renewals and execute it in the program lineup. Any time the CP's decide to raise rates, the CableCo's simply nod their head "Sure!!" and proceed to immediately raise the rate on just the affected package 1:1. When Sub's Cancel, the CP's will get less because Less people actually get the content now (which can now be officially documented since the CableCo's are A-La-Carte Now), and they'll think twice before raising rates.
Now I know this will never happen, because most of those contracts explicitly state you cannot do this sort of a-la-carte tiering, but that's where the lawyer sneakiness comes in.
Considering that he is sort of an icon to nerds and is dying of a recently announced disease, I would considering it newsworthy.
Although I doubt that smoking is the main reason he has COPD now considering he stopped smoking so long ago, but it may have been a contributing factor. He was an avid Photographer, and if he did a lot of darkroom work, he could have contracted the disease from breathing in the Caustic Developer Chemicals.
This.
I've been on this site for a long time. My Low 6 digit number should be a testament of how long I've been on this site. Hell I don't Even use Deathlizard any more as my handle on any site but this one. but I can tell you what my Display Options are set to.
1) I Use the Classic Interface because I like the classic Interface. It's simple, Loads fast, and gets me my News For Nerds and Stuff that Matters.
2) I use the Classic Discussion system, and not the one that was reworked the last time the site had a modernization.
What makes this site special is the simple fact that it is so customizable. I don't have to update my look of the site but others that want to can get the new whiz bang tech site that the kiddiez crave. I can keep it the way I want and the Kids get the new wave look because they are either not logged in or they signed up with a new account with the look turned on by default.
I know it would be a pain to maintain both looks, especially since it looks like they want to do away with the generic icons as news points and replace it with stock photos, but I can't imagine it being so hard to maintain when it's pretty much been the same for over 15 years now and pulls data from the same database, and I think it would be worth maintaining rather than lose your user base to other options or even to a forked, Slashcode running, classic slashdot site.
Had the same issues with Seagate 500gb Laptop drives. We had anywhere between 10-25% failure rates on those on a 400 laptop batch. Hitachi's were lower (about 8 to 15% on the worst batch) but not much in the 7200 spindle speed. 5400 Hitachi's on the other hand were rock solid (I can remember replacing only 3 in a 400 Laptop batch), and I would take those Seagates over Fujitsu's or Toshibas any day. Hell one batch of Fuji's back in 2003 had an almost 50-70% failure rate over three years. At least you had a decent chance of getting data from a failing Seagate. Most other drives were unreadable when they failed.
My last straw with Seagate was when my 2GB External Ghost image drive failed with our historical backups on it. It would read and write, but it was pause for 2-30 seconds randomly clicking the whole time. When I replaced it with a RAID External I couldn't get the drive RMA'd because it wouldn't fail Seagate Diagnostics (although it would fail smart tests from other test software like HDAT2) It finally gave me a Seagate code when I tested it non stop for 3 weeks.
Apparently it must not be an competitive marketplace or they just want to find a convenient way of going out of business, since the Local Cable company (if they have one) is going to make a killing there.
Hell, Verizon HomeFusion is about the same price as the 25GB plan. You can drop your phone line, It'll blow the doors off DSL speeds, and it can be added to a share everything plan so the data can be shared with a 4G hotspot/Phone. If you're going to pay that much you might as well get something that's going to travel and be faster.
No. what it should do is act like android plugins and pop a security warning if any permission level changes between updates, or if it modifies settings.
Disabling auto update may add more problems if the app has bugs that can be exploited. I'd rather have Chrome disable the plugin if permissions change instead of removing auto update altogether.
On another note. why is this all of a sudden news now? I've been seeing all of these Virus ads and plugins posts on slashdot this week and I've been seeing this stuff going in chrome for Months now. Hell 60-70% of my service calls are from this stuff.
Hell, I had two Chromebooks come in infected and you can't just remove the extension on a chromebook. You basicially have to log into google using Chrome on a windows PC, Infect that chrome, disinfect it using ADWCleaner or JRT to remove the extension enough in chrome so it deletes the plugin in your cloud settings, and reset the Chromebook to factory (otherwise it comes back). So much for "Chromebooks don't get viruses", although Google now has a browser reset button (The two chromebooks were infected before this feature was added in the WIndows builds) so that might make it easier to remove. I sure hope so for Chromebook's sake.
Google. You Seriously need to start monitoring and cracking down on this stuff ASAP. And start paying attention to your damn Google ads! I'm sick of people installing buldleware virii everytime they search for any of the following:
Firefox
Google Chrome (Thats right! They're hijacking your OWN BROWSER'S ADS ON YOUR OWN SEARCH ENGINE!)
Internet Explorer
Windows Media Player
Openoffice/Libreoffice ETC
VLC Media Player
7ZIP
Quicktime/Itunes ETC
ETC. (I can literally go on forever with this list. Just as a rule of thumb, if it's a popular software download, it's most likely been install hijacked by a Virus Inc.)
Anytime anyone uses adwords to get listed on a legitimate app, and it doesn't go to the Legitimate program's website, I want a big red light to start blinking with 150DB Sirens going off and a Evil Sounding voice that says WARNING!! ADWORDS HIJACK DETECTED!! going down somewhere in your security dept so your security team scours their ad submission in fear of the big red light of screaming Terror going off. And they better damn well ban that entire domain and any subdomains from ALL ADS FOR LIFE! Either Get Tough and declare war on spam and virus pushers or get steamrolled!
The same goes for you too MS. Fix Bing! See what Google is doing? You're doing the exact same thing and need the exact same remidies! Hell! Slahdot? Want a Bash MS Story for your front page? There's malicious apps in the Windows 8 Store! Just open up the store, search for "getdesktopapp" and see the Virus and Adware crap MS's Own Store is infecting people with! Now get on bashing M$ like you love to do. Chop Chop!
And as for Antivirus firms. (And frankly, I don't care who you are. You ALL suck when it comes to this) Wake The F Up! You detect Gator, A 10 year old adware/spyware mess as a virus, but Conduit SearchProtect is totally legitimate and in no way is a threat to computer users even though it does thins that are 10 times worse than anything Claria did? BS! Wake Up, Grow a Pair and start doing your damn job! It's a shame that the only people that detect these things is the people behind ADWCleaner and the Junkware Removal Tool (thanks BTW for making these two tools since noone else detects adware anymore). Adware is a VIrus now. Bundleware is a Virus. Start detecting and removing this crap as malware like you should! It's real easy to find out what to detect. If you install a wanted program (like Adobe reader), and it installs Something the person didn't want (like Ask Toolbar, or whatever garbageware of the day adobe gets paid to infect PC's with) It's malicious and should be flagged as such. I don't care if it's got a Checkmark to not install or who the hell is pushing the junkware or who the junkware creator is. the practice is bad and needs to die.
Staying with my original theme of copying my old post...
If they were serious about a revolt, or serious about sending a message to MS, they should go to CES with all of their PC's running Windows 7 / Full Featured Linux / ChromeOS, ETC... or nothing but Android Tablets.
Sure why not. Here was my last comment minus the revolt stuff. Hopefully We get a few more of these articles. The .NET Firefox plugin dupes needs some competition.
Adding android on an OS that's already got a Tablet interface is akin of adding spinner rimmed wheels to the hood of a car because people don't like standard rims. It's Basically Splashtop OS for 2014. It doesn't solve any problem, hell it probably makes it worse since Android isn't exactly designed for desktop use either
It won't
If they were serious about a revolt, or serious about sending a message to MS, they should go to CES with all of their PC's running Windows 7 / Full Featured Linux / ChromeOS, ETC... or nothing but Android Tablets.
Adding android on an OS that's already got a Tablet interface is akin of adding spinner rimmed wheels to the hood of a car because people don't like standard rims. It's Basically Splashtop OS for 2014. It doesn't solve any problem, hell it probably makes it worse since Android isn't exactly designed for desktop use either
They did it for Windows 2000. I read somewhere that MS charged a big company running windows 2000 at the time over $10000 for a single patch after windows 2000 expired.
The best option is to get rid of it. I dealt with this issue back when windows 2000 went EOL (primarily with scientific equipment that would lose certification if tampered with) and believe me you don't want to go there if you can avoid it. You can avoid it if the system is not network facing and you don't use media like USB drives on it. But any level of network from Internet to Sneakernet puts you at risk.
The only major problem I've run into compatibility when it comes to transitioning programs windows XP to 7 is 64Bit and UAC. Disabling UAC, enabling the Administrator account, and using the 32Bit version of 7 will 99/100 times get an old program to run in 7 using XP compatibility mode, and if it still doesn't work, then there's windows XP mode (although that can get infected, you can minimize the impact with NAT or Disabling Network support.)
Hardware is a different story. Many XP drivers will install in 32bit 7 but they can cause bluescreens and the like. I've honestly had better luck with Vista in this regard. Again with UAC Turned off.
Setting your answering machine to 6 rings seems to work for us. they usually stop after the 4th ring and flag the number as dead since they assume everybody has an answering machine.
Another option is to use a thrid party call screener like nomorobo or Google Voice, but I've never tried those so YMMV.
This is nothing compared to the .Net Firefox plugin
If Slashdot put as much effort in denouncing that plugin into Actual malicious plugins like Conduit, Dealio and the like, the world would be a better place.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qR3D-Jx6FQ
Honestly, I can't believe MS is even entertaining him as CEO. Their almost better putting Apotheker or Fiorina on the list.
I swear to god Microsoft has been infected by some clinical, idocracy level of Stupid or Brain Eating Slugs, and this is coming from someone that has a long Slashdot history of Defending Microsoft on this site. In the past year they have managed to piss off just about every customer sector they have to the limit at a time when they cant afford to lose customers and are the most vulnerable in decades to losing said customers to alternatives. They need to stop screwing around and start listening to their customers and fix the issues they keep bringing up instead of "innovating" themselves into oblivion.
As someone else already pointed out, It's the Ads. If you have ad blocker the top site will be the correct one. Many people do not differentiate between the ads and the real links, so they click on the first link that shows up, downloades it, and get hammered. This is why Ad blocking is so important these days, because Ad firms won't do the job of filtering malicious ads
Right now, in the past 30 days, I've dealt with 6 Viruses like Sirifef, TDSS and various FBI Viruses. This week alone, I've cleaned 9 PC's that had Drive By Downloader Infections and I usually keep that pace every week. I'd say I've cleaned roughly 30+ this past 30 days. If that's not a sign where things are going I don't know what is.