Hacking the registry or using third-party utilities to remove them doesn't count.
Ignoring the obvious answer of why it "doesn't count", there is no need for such theatrics. Simply delete the relevant.exe files and you have done the equivalent of "uninstalling" Safari and Quicktime Player.
Fundamentally, however, the "issue" is both irrelevant, and a straw man. The presence of IE in Windows does not stop you using a different browser any more than the presence of Safari in OS X does.
Umm, you can if hack shit and forfeit your right to expect microsoft to keep your system as secure as systems with the browser. And I've only ever seen it done successfully on a 2000 box; the hackablity of vist and xp are unknows to me.
Performing the equivalent of "uninstalling" Safari and Quicktime player is simply a matter of finding the relevant.exe files and hitting "delete".
Ah, and theres the rub. When a company leverage's its power to kill competition...the only product left is monopolist's and therefore it is the defato 'best'.
Microsoft have not "leveraged" their "monopoly" to kill office competitors (nor have they needed to).
A comparison of the Secumia advisories for IIS6 and Apache 2.2 is somthing I havent looked at before, and is interesting. Given that they have both had three vulnerabilties it's perhaps going a bit far to say that IIS has the better security, particularily given that the Apache vulnaribilities are arguably less critical in nature over all
I suggest looking at the "all" graphs going back to ~2003, for iis5 & 6 and Apache 1.3.x, 2.0.x and 2.2.x.
Really? I'm intrigued by this comment. Could you cite some *independent* sources that back this up?
Without knowing what you consider "independent", maybe not. However, Secunia should get you started, as will Google.
Additionally, before stating Apache is more prolific, you may wish to consider that Netcraft's methodology is a flawed way for determining this, and hence their data does not support the assertion.
He explains the Aero issue (he turned off those features so it would more closely mimic the wider user base), [...]
Which is ridiculous on its face, because a) most new Vista users are going to get it on a new, Aero-capable PC and b) most upgrading users are going to have a video card that's been more than bottom-of-the-barrel for the last 3-5 years (or won't be bothered splahing the US$30 it costs to buy one new).
Aero's video card requirements are not at all unreasonable or excessive. Implying they are - by suggesting most PCs running Vista will not meet them - is blatantly dishonest.
Grandparent wasn't high-horsing: availablility of Free source means a lot to him/her, as it does to me. It is a requirement Windows and Mac OS X do not fulfil adequately. We therefore make like good capitalists and pays our money (or not) and takes ours choice -- be that Linux, BSD or something more exotic. So-called moral high-grounds are not in play.
Yes, they are. You can get access to the source code of Windows (and OS X, too, I'd imagine) - you just have to pay for it.
Technical superiority doesn't mean as much when you can't get vendor support. This is sad but true. For a long while to come Vista will enjoy all the attention and benefits of a larger install base regardless of technical merits (or lack thereof).
Helpfully, Vista is also technically superior in pretty much every way.
I think Microsoft has really shot themselves in the foot with Vista's DRM scam. Audiophiles and/or musicians who have a small PC-based home recording setup will be real pissed when they realize that their brand new $400 sound card with S/PDIF and Digital i/o is crippled thanks to the Vista DRM nightmare. Vista takes the liberty of "downgrading" unsigned sound signals going into or out of the PC.
You are wrong.
Avoiding DRM in Vista is really, really easy (which is presumably why so many Microsoft haters are FUDing their hearts out trying to make it appear complex): if you don't use DRM encumbered media, you will never even know DRM exists.
So then, on the server front, why is Apache not subject to as many attacks as Windows IIS?
IIS has had a better security record than Apache for some years now.
(Additionally, cherry picking one particular software package to try and make a generalisation about an entire platform, is an atrocious methodology - and that's ignoring the issues with comparing such disparate things.)
Finally, you completely missed the point of my statement, which is that Linux isn't going to become especially popular *until* it goes down the "monoculture" path. You can already see this happening in subsections of the marketplace where Linux has real presence - eg: most "enterprise" Linux systems are running one of only a few distros which are largely the same anyway.
You don't give a toss eh? When people identify business practices as monopolistic and unethical, it's not about how the businesses are being run by Very Very Bad Men doing Immoral Things. It's that it results in the still birth of new technology -- it's the antithesis to innovation. It results in the consumer having to pay exorbitant money for software that sucks. You don't care about that?
That Microsoft's software is on par with - if not better than - most of its contemporaries, somewhat confounds your hypothesis.
Even if Linux were to become more popular, I doubt that it would have as many security problems as Windows. For one thing, Linux is not the inbred monoculture that Windows is.
It will be when/if it attains the "popularity" of Windows.
When a corporation creates a product that is unsafe not just to its user, but to many thousands of others, and provides instructions for that product which, even if faithfully and fully followed by its user, are insufficient to prevent it from causing damage and suffering to thousands of others, that corporation should be liable for the damage and suffering.
If you do this with Windows, you're fine. How is it going to help, again ?
Unless it wants to alter the later behavior of the computer in some way.
Incorrect. Even as a limited user, a program can do whatever it wants to the user's environment - and given the vast bulk of machines are single user, that's all it needs to do.
On the typical desktop, the difference between a piece of software "starting at boot" and "starting at login" is essentially zero.
If a Mac user, admin or not, downloads an executable file masquerading as a picture, sound or other kind of file, a warning will pop up informing the user that a program that has never run before on their computer is trying to open. The user may then cancel the launching of that program.
As it does on XP.
Also, "may" != "will", as you are implying.
Of course they can, but they have to be installed first. To do that requires an admin password.
Also incorrect. Programs can be run without being installed. Additionally, for "admin" users, program installations generally don't _require_ an admin password (even though many needlessly prompt for one, exacerbating the "just type in the password" problem), as "admin" users have write access to the Applications folder (and many system folders), without needing to raise their privileges.
Bottom line: True, there are fewer Macs, although writer(s) of a successful virus infecting thousands of Macs would likely feel mighty proud of themselves, because it is much harder to get malware to run or install on Macs than on Windows.
Writing a virus (or piece of malware) for OS X is trivial - many people have done so. The _problem_ is getting it to propagate, something the relatively small OS X userbase has a significant impact on and which the virus/malware author himself, has relatively little impact on.
The vast majority of virus and malware infestations do not exploit software bugs, they exploit the user.
How is moving everything around and forcing users to relearn the interface with every release better in ANY way?
The layout of the XP Start Menu is essentially identical to the layout of the classic Start Menu, the only difference of note being the extra list of recently used applications. It's _better_ because it makes accessing commonly used objects faster while imposing no penalty on "traditional" usage patterns.
Changes in Windows are about milking the cash cow.
Which is presumably why every new version (with the possible exception of Me) is measurably better, I assume ?
Flashy new UIs are created because it makes it easy for marketing to show changes in the new version [...]
In that you have something of a point (although there hasn't been a major change to the Windows GUI since Windows 95). This is done largely because people never look any further than the GUI, so it's about the only place improvements can be made that will actually be noticed. Even on Slashdot, a site supposedly for the "techies", Vista is typically written off as nothing more than a "new skin on XP", despite the *massive* changes that have been made throughout the entire OS.
[...] and because programmers hate doing maintenance work.
There are nearly an infinite number of ways to compare complex beasts like operating systems. I'm going to skip low-level issues, like comparing driver architectures.
Ie: we'll ignore all the places Vista is a clear winner, because then we wouldn't be able to say OS X is da shiznit...
Then we get criticism because the reviewer does not understand the interface:
With that in mind, note that, even though the IE window is not front-most, the "back" button looks as though it's active.
That's because it *is* "active" - Windows does not require a window be in the foreground for its widgets to be used.
The non-IE windows are more consistent in appearance, but if you didn't know that the red "x" or close widget in the front-most window shows that it is the active window, it would be somewhat easy for a new user to get confused about which window is the one they're really working in.
Apart from the way it's overlapping all the others, has a different coloured title/border and is the one the the user is interacting with...
Further in, it's ironic that a) they praise the "consistency" of MacOS (given it's been heading steadily downhill since OS X was first released) and b) they criticise "change for the sake of change" (given most of the UI changes in OS X deliver - at best - no usability improvement over MacOS Classic and are textbooks examples of "change for the sake of change" - or, more acurately, "change for the sake of flashy demoes").
This "comparison" boils down to three statements, all dressed up in various ways and repeated a few times:
"It's kinda different to previous versions of Windows"
"Its not like OS X"
"I don't know what I'm doing or why this is happening"
The question is: how did that malware get on the system in the first place?
Somebody went "Hey, cool smiley icons ! ME WANT !!".
In the case of Windows, it is quite easy. A firewall not prevent the downloading of programs, good or bad. On a Mac, lack of the admin password will prevent installation of software, especially in the application folder or any other system areas.
Applications do not need to be "installed" to be run.
Because many, if not most Windows programs misbehave or won't work at all, if the user doesn't have admin rights, the malware can do anything it wants without the user being aware.
Firstly, most applications can be shoehorned into running in restricted user accounts if the IT staff are of even average skills.
Secondly, programs can just as easily run in the background, anonymously to the user, on OS X as they can on Windows.
VISTA supposedly will not allow such software to run unless this prohibition is deliberately disabled by the user. How many users will do this, in order to get their old familiar programs to work on their shiny new computers?
A smaller proportion than those who type in their admin password without thinking whenever they get prompted (mostly because they won't be able to figure out how).
The fact that Mac software, once installed by and administrator, (even games) does NOT need to run under an admin account makes the request for an admin password a red flag that something wants to go where it should not. If a user doesn't have that admin password or is smart enough not to give it, then there is protection from whatever operation a (rogue) program might want to do. The admin password therefore is definitely NOT snake oil. The user's data is still subject to be sent to the writers of malevolent programs however.
You've missed the point. Most malicious software *does not need* elevated privileges to run, so there would be no "admin prompt". *That* is why the "admin password" is mostly snake oil.
The reason running as limited users in Windows helps so much at the moment is because most malware is as badly written as most Windows software and breaks in non-admin accounts without some babysitting. This situation will not continue, as malware authors rewrite their code so it doesn't assume Administrator-level privileges.
Hardware RAID 5 is faster, I somehow doubt you want your enterprise server to be wasting it's clock cycles calculating CRC values for your array.
I would if it's faster. In any event, the overhead of "calculating CRCs" is so low on any modern hardware it's irrelevant.
There are many, many benchmarks showing that software RAID is faster than hardware RAID in most situations, on decent modern hardware. Not to mention reliability and long term support options are typically better as well.
Hardware RAID unquestionably buys you transparency (and in many cases, is worth it solely for that). It *may* buy you better performance, depending on the exact configuration and environment, but it's not a given.
As for docking connectors, is that really a sticking point now that there are wireless (bluetooth) keyboards and mice available?
Yes, because there's still network, power, monitor(s), external hard disks (and/or other devices) and, in some cases, PCI expansion cards.
The lack of a docking station came *this* close to stopping my decision to get a MacBook Pro. Were reports about "hackintosh" laptops more positive, it probably would have.
Outlook, web apps that need the Windows version of IE and IT ignorance about OSX were killers for bringing Macs into the enterprise in any large numbers.
You forgot probably one of the biggest reasons - hardware cost and flexibility.
For example, we require the ability to connect two displays to our machines. So the minimum Apple machine we can consider is a ~AU$4000 Mac Pro (and since Apple won't fix their Nvidia drivers to support display rotation, it also requires the AU$500 ATI video card option), which - while it is a relatively small additional expense next to a pair of certified AU$2000 LCDs, an AU$10,000 Radworks license and an office views of Sydney Harbour and Opera House, is a hell of a lot more than a suitable Dell costing half the price (if not less). Especially when you're buying a few dozen of them (not all of which come with the additional expense of Radworks, etc).
If Apple want to seriously target business, they need a desktop line to match Dell's Optiplexes and a laptop line that supports docking stations (the lack of a docking station came *this* close to stopping me getting a MacBook Pro).
Frankly, I don't know what Microsoft was thinking when they completely replaced the user interface, with no way to return to the old one.
They first thing they were thinking, was that if they did that no-one would use the new one (witness the number of "geeks" who instinctively change the Windows XP Start Menu back to the "Classic" style despite the newer layout being better in pretty much every way).
The second thing they were thinking was by leaving in the old system, they would have - at a minimum - doubled the amount of QA and testing that needed to be put into any product updates.
Slashdot Mirror
No, you cannot.
Yes, you can.
Hacking the registry or using third-party utilities to remove them doesn't count.
Ignoring the obvious answer of why it "doesn't count", there is no need for such theatrics. Simply delete the relevant .exe files and you have done the equivalent of "uninstalling" Safari and Quicktime Player.
Fundamentally, however, the "issue" is both irrelevant, and a straw man. The presence of IE in Windows does not stop you using a different browser any more than the presence of Safari in OS X does.
Umm, you can if hack shit and forfeit your right to expect microsoft to keep your system as secure as systems with the browser. And I've only ever seen it done successfully on a 2000 box; the hackablity of vist and xp are unknows to me.
Performing the equivalent of "uninstalling" Safari and Quicktime player is simply a matter of finding the relevant .exe files and hitting "delete".
Ah, and theres the rub. When a company leverage's its power to kill competition...the only product left is monopolist's and therefore it is the defato 'best'.
Microsoft have not "leveraged" their "monopoly" to kill office competitors (nor have they needed to).
A comparison of the Secumia advisories for IIS6 and Apache 2.2 is somthing I havent looked at before, and is interesting. Given that they have both had three vulnerabilties it's perhaps going a bit far to say that IIS has the better security, particularily given that the Apache vulnaribilities are arguably less critical in nature over all
I suggest looking at the "all" graphs going back to ~2003, for iis5 & 6 and Apache 1.3.x, 2.0.x and 2.2.x.
Really? I'm intrigued by this comment. Could you cite some *independent* sources that back this up?
Without knowing what you consider "independent", maybe not. However, Secunia should get you started, as will Google.
Additionally, before stating Apache is more prolific, you may wish to consider that Netcraft's methodology is a flawed way for determining this, and hence their data does not support the assertion.
Right-click on desktop. Menu comes up. Check.
No, it doesn't. OS X by default does not have the right-click enabled.
Pro - insanely overpriced, overkill.
The Mac Pro isn't overpriced, it's just expensive. For what you get, the price is quite competitive.
He explains the Aero issue (he turned off those features so it would more closely mimic the wider user base), [...]
Which is ridiculous on its face, because a) most new Vista users are going to get it on a new, Aero-capable PC and b) most upgrading users are going to have a video card that's been more than bottom-of-the-barrel for the last 3-5 years (or won't be bothered splahing the US$30 it costs to buy one new).
Aero's video card requirements are not at all unreasonable or excessive. Implying they are - by suggesting most PCs running Vista will not meet them - is blatantly dishonest.
Because it's better implemented in OS X.
Why ?
Grandparent wasn't high-horsing: availablility of Free source means a lot to him/her, as it does to me. It is a requirement Windows and Mac OS X do not fulfil adequately. We therefore make like good capitalists and pays our money (or not) and takes ours choice -- be that Linux, BSD or something more exotic. So-called moral high-grounds are not in play.
Yes, they are. You can get access to the source code of Windows (and OS X, too, I'd imagine) - you just have to pay for it.
Technical superiority doesn't mean as much when you can't get vendor support. This is sad but true. For a long while to come Vista will enjoy all the attention and benefits of a larger install base regardless of technical merits (or lack thereof).
Helpfully, Vista is also technically superior in pretty much every way.
I think Microsoft has really shot themselves in the foot with Vista's DRM scam. Audiophiles and/or musicians who have a small PC-based home recording setup will be real pissed when they realize that their brand new $400 sound card with S/PDIF and Digital i/o is crippled thanks to the Vista DRM nightmare. Vista takes the liberty of "downgrading" unsigned sound signals going into or out of the PC.
You are wrong.
Avoiding DRM in Vista is really, really easy (which is presumably why so many Microsoft haters are FUDing their hearts out trying to make it appear complex): if you don't use DRM encumbered media, you will never even know DRM exists.
So then, on the server front, why is Apache not subject to as many attacks as Windows IIS?
IIS has had a better security record than Apache for some years now.
(Additionally, cherry picking one particular software package to try and make a generalisation about an entire platform, is an atrocious methodology - and that's ignoring the issues with comparing such disparate things.)
Finally, you completely missed the point of my statement, which is that Linux isn't going to become especially popular *until* it goes down the "monoculture" path. You can already see this happening in subsections of the marketplace where Linux has real presence - eg: most "enterprise" Linux systems are running one of only a few distros which are largely the same anyway.
You don't give a toss eh? When people identify business practices as monopolistic and unethical, it's not about how the businesses are being run by Very Very Bad Men doing Immoral Things. It's that it results in the still birth of new technology -- it's the antithesis to innovation. It results in the consumer having to pay exorbitant money for software that sucks. You don't care about that?
That Microsoft's software is on par with - if not better than - most of its contemporaries, somewhat confounds your hypothesis.
Unlike Microsoft, you can uninstall the web browser and media player in OS X.
You can do the equivalent in Windows, and have always been able to.
Even if Linux were to become more popular, I doubt that it would have as many security problems as Windows. For one thing, Linux is not the inbred monoculture that Windows is.
It will be when/if it attains the "popularity" of Windows.
When a corporation creates a product that is unsafe not just to its user, but to many thousands of others, and provides instructions for that product which, even if faithfully and fully followed by its user, are insufficient to prevent it from causing damage and suffering to thousands of others, that corporation should be liable for the damage and suffering.
If you do this with Windows, you're fine. How is it going to help, again ?
Unless it wants to alter the later behavior of the computer in some way.
Incorrect. Even as a limited user, a program can do whatever it wants to the user's environment - and given the vast bulk of machines are single user, that's all it needs to do.
On the typical desktop, the difference between a piece of software "starting at boot" and "starting at login" is essentially zero.
If a Mac user, admin or not, downloads an executable file masquerading as a picture, sound or other kind of file, a warning will pop up informing the user that a program that has never run before on their computer is trying to open. The user may then cancel the launching of that program.
As it does on XP.
Also, "may" != "will", as you are implying.
Of course they can, but they have to be installed first. To do that requires an admin password.
Also incorrect. Programs can be run without being installed. Additionally, for "admin" users, program installations generally don't _require_ an admin password (even though many needlessly prompt for one, exacerbating the "just type in the password" problem), as "admin" users have write access to the Applications folder (and many system folders), without needing to raise their privileges.
Bottom line: True, there are fewer Macs, although writer(s) of a successful virus infecting thousands of Macs would likely feel mighty proud of themselves, because it is much harder to get malware to run or install on Macs than on Windows.
Writing a virus (or piece of malware) for OS X is trivial - many people have done so. The _problem_ is getting it to propagate, something the relatively small OS X userbase has a significant impact on and which the virus/malware author himself, has relatively little impact on.
The vast majority of virus and malware infestations do not exploit software bugs, they exploit the user.
How is moving everything around and forcing users to relearn the interface with every release better in ANY way?
The layout of the XP Start Menu is essentially identical to the layout of the classic Start Menu, the only difference of note being the extra list of recently used applications. It's _better_ because it makes accessing commonly used objects faster while imposing no penalty on "traditional" usage patterns.
Changes in Windows are about milking the cash cow.
Which is presumably why every new version (with the possible exception of Me) is measurably better, I assume ?
Flashy new UIs are created because it makes it easy for marketing to show changes in the new version [...]
In that you have something of a point (although there hasn't been a major change to the Windows GUI since Windows 95). This is done largely because people never look any further than the GUI, so it's about the only place improvements can be made that will actually be noticed. Even on Slashdot, a site supposedly for the "techies", Vista is typically written off as nothing more than a "new skin on XP", despite the *massive* changes that have been made throughout the entire OS.
[...] and because programmers hate doing maintenance work.
Which is why they get paid to do it.
There are nearly an infinite number of ways to compare complex beasts like operating systems. I'm going to skip low-level issues, like comparing driver architectures.
Ie: we'll ignore all the places Vista is a clear winner, because then we wouldn't be able to say OS X is da shiznit...
Then we get criticism because the reviewer does not understand the interface:
With that in mind, note that, even though the IE window is not front-most, the "back" button looks as though it's active.
That's because it *is* "active" - Windows does not require a window be in the foreground for its widgets to be used.
The non-IE windows are more consistent in appearance, but if you didn't know that the red "x" or close widget in the front-most window shows that it is the active window, it would be somewhat easy for a new user to get confused about which window is the one they're really working in.
Apart from the way it's overlapping all the others, has a different coloured title/border and is the one the the user is interacting with...
Further in, it's ironic that a) they praise the "consistency" of MacOS (given it's been heading steadily downhill since OS X was first released) and b) they criticise "change for the sake of change" (given most of the UI changes in OS X deliver - at best - no usability improvement over MacOS Classic and are textbooks examples of "change for the sake of change" - or, more acurately, "change for the sake of flashy demoes").
This "comparison" boils down to three statements, all dressed up in various ways and repeated a few times:
"It's kinda different to previous versions of Windows"
"Its not like OS X"
"I don't know what I'm doing or why this is happening"
The question is: how did that malware get on the system in the first place?
Somebody went "Hey, cool smiley icons ! ME WANT !!".
In the case of Windows, it is quite easy. A firewall not prevent the downloading of programs, good or bad. On a Mac, lack of the admin password will prevent installation of software, especially in the application folder or any other system areas.
Applications do not need to be "installed" to be run.
Because many, if not most Windows programs misbehave or won't work at all, if the user doesn't have admin rights, the malware can do anything it wants without the user being aware.
Firstly, most applications can be shoehorned into running in restricted user accounts if the IT staff are of even average skills.
Secondly, programs can just as easily run in the background, anonymously to the user, on OS X as they can on Windows.
VISTA supposedly will not allow such software to run unless this prohibition is deliberately disabled by the user. How many users will do this, in order to get their old familiar programs to work on their shiny new computers?
A smaller proportion than those who type in their admin password without thinking whenever they get prompted (mostly because they won't be able to figure out how).
The fact that Mac software, once installed by and administrator, (even games) does NOT need to run under an admin account makes the request for an admin password a red flag that something wants to go where it should not. If a user doesn't have that admin password or is smart enough not to give it, then there is protection from whatever operation a (rogue) program might want to do. The admin password therefore is definitely NOT snake oil. The user's data is still subject to be sent to the writers of malevolent programs however.
You've missed the point. Most malicious software *does not need* elevated privileges to run, so there would be no "admin prompt". *That* is why the "admin password" is mostly snake oil.
The reason running as limited users in Windows helps so much at the moment is because most malware is as badly written as most Windows software and breaks in non-admin accounts without some babysitting. This situation will not continue, as malware authors rewrite their code so it doesn't assume Administrator-level privileges.
Hardware RAID 5 is faster, I somehow doubt you want your enterprise server to be wasting it's clock cycles calculating CRC values for your array.
I would if it's faster. In any event, the overhead of "calculating CRCs" is so low on any modern hardware it's irrelevant.
There are many, many benchmarks showing that software RAID is faster than hardware RAID in most situations, on decent modern hardware. Not to mention reliability and long term support options are typically better as well.
Hardware RAID unquestionably buys you transparency (and in many cases, is worth it solely for that). It *may* buy you better performance, depending on the exact configuration and environment, but it's not a given.
As for docking connectors, is that really a sticking point now that there are wireless (bluetooth) keyboards and mice available?
Yes, because there's still network, power, monitor(s), external hard disks (and/or other devices) and, in some cases, PCI expansion cards.
The lack of a docking station came *this* close to stopping my decision to get a MacBook Pro. Were reports about "hackintosh" laptops more positive, it probably would have.
Outlook, web apps that need the Windows version of IE and IT ignorance about OSX were killers for bringing Macs into the enterprise in any large numbers.
You forgot probably one of the biggest reasons - hardware cost and flexibility.
For example, we require the ability to connect two displays to our machines. So the minimum Apple machine we can consider is a ~AU$4000 Mac Pro (and since Apple won't fix their Nvidia drivers to support display rotation, it also requires the AU$500 ATI video card option), which - while it is a relatively small additional expense next to a pair of certified AU$2000 LCDs, an AU$10,000 Radworks license and an office views of Sydney Harbour and Opera House, is a hell of a lot more than a suitable Dell costing half the price (if not less). Especially when you're buying a few dozen of them (not all of which come with the additional expense of Radworks, etc).
If Apple want to seriously target business, they need a desktop line to match Dell's Optiplexes and a laptop line that supports docking stations (the lack of a docking station came *this* close to stopping me getting a MacBook Pro).
Frankly, I don't know what Microsoft was thinking when they completely replaced the user interface, with no way to return to the old one.
They first thing they were thinking, was that if they did that no-one would use the new one (witness the number of "geeks" who instinctively change the Windows XP Start Menu back to the "Classic" style despite the newer layout being better in pretty much every way).
The second thing they were thinking was by leaving in the old system, they would have - at a minimum - doubled the amount of QA and testing that needed to be put into any product updates.