Its worth noting that they don't freeze just any account.
I think at some point we all just need to re-evaluate what we consider a bank in the modern age. I continually fail to see how Paypal is not a bank and thus regulated by all of the same government policy.
I've heard the arguments and they just don't make sense. On the Internet some things do need new definitions since they don't reflect world realities.
I'm sorry, does that mean we should still be paying many thousands of dollars for a TV?
Inherently when something becomes a commodity you cannot charge as much for it. Imagine if the cost of cars scaled the same way. Granted cars are a very bad example since they have no really changed in price at all. Just arguably more features.
Still, how do people make money producing a commodity? There are many ways, refer to sugar industry execs for lessons, same with coffee, and for that matter all the crops. You make your money in quantity, you make it so cheap to produce that you produce a lot more to make your tiny profit margin actually work.
That is if you allow Windows to do restore it. In reality anyone that wants to can prevent IE from ever showing up again.
Besides that I think you dramatically underestimate the modularity of Windows XP and 2003. They were built with an almost Netware like structure. It's much nicer.
Well Windows and OS X are operating systems, Linux isn't. Linux in and of itself does nothing. Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, those are Linux based operating systems.
That said, who in the world has the mentality that Windows is the only OS?
AOL/Time Warner?
In a very large portion of the U.S. they are the only form of Internet access.
Besides that, the web services industry pretty much as a whole. They control both AIM and ICQ which together make up a most impressive userbase. They in the past have followed a lot of the same practices as Microsoft. They would crowd out competition all the time. I remember they went in and bought out my local ISP so for a time AOL was the only option. Then I found another ISP which three years later was bought out by Earthlink. None of the large ISPs are what I would consider responsible corporate citizens unlike my former favorite Ben and Jerry's. Sadly they two have been bought out by a much less friendly corporation.
And my idea was that there are hundreds of browsers available, I just named a few to help get my point across. My point was, how would you choose which one you wanted? Invariably the mass populous doesn't know about Firefox.
In another thread I mentioned how you would choose a media player. Basically the first time the user logs in it brings them to a website, preferably at the W3C or some 3rd party and it brings up a list of media players for them to download. Download is the keyword as it would mean no software got added that didn't need to be there. You wouldn't have binaries waiting for you click on, you would just have your media player. The link could even be displayed in random order so as to encourage competition.
As for your other ways, cdrom in my mind is just not an option anymore, the software gets outdated too fast.
Now for payroll software, I know its just an example but a very large number of them use a web browser for displaying reports as well as for their help system. The same goes with an increasing number of other types of apps. Just having the browser is not a security risk, how you use the browser is where the risk comes into play.
A system that does less is not necessarily simpler, it just does less. Crippling functionality and calling it simple is not moving forward, it is stepping backwards. Even removing Media Player hurts a lot of 3rd party products which use the player as their tutorial method of choice. So you mention its a minor change in it effects a whole lot more than you can imagine. That doesn't make it impossible by any means, but there is a lot more do it.
MS, wouldn't have to make "hundreds of custom versions". Just disentangle media and preferably web browsers so that they can be omitted, uninstalled or replaced by the OEM or final user
Okay, here is the bigger problem, you are expecting too much from the average end-user. They buy a computer and they want to watch DVD as soon as they turn it on. They want to be able to login to whatever IM client they regularly use. (Most know where to get it which is an interesting argument when applied to Media Players)
You would have them starting up a crippled OS, not something that would make the majority of the masses happy. Corporate IT would be in heaven though.
Now for the patch system which you seem to have confused with patch availability. There is nothing wrong with the system, WindowsUpdate, or preferably a more local SUS is downright convenient. SUS is even better since you almost never have to reboot to install the patch. I don't need to uninstall compromised software, I have firewalls and proper ACLs that prevent such things from really ever becoming a problem. Non of the worms out on the Net has ever infected any of my networks. Seems kind of strange considering you say the patch system is terrible security.
I'll add that no where have I said you had to only use MS products, thats just plain stupid, in a corporate security setting you never rely on one method of protection because everything can be compromised. Traditionally I use Gentoo on my perimeter gateways and routers throughout connected to gasp... even Windows servers! Non of them have direct contact with the Internet so they are mostly safe. In settings where there is more money involved I'll use cisco routers for my perimeter and Gentoo as the next hop in. Things work quite smoothly which is why I screwed myself over in the process. No maintenance work, oh well, least I have contracts to build more networks to tide me over.
I do see the problem but bring Real player to the top is hardly a solution as it is also a closed format.
That said, even my cell Samsung cell phone can play wma. My Linux boxes? No problem, OS X? Still no problem. Does Real player have all the same support? Hell no, it will run on the PCs, but since you brought up PDAs thats where they lose bad.
Of course I could be wrong about the PDA situation, I just tried look it up, but Real wanted to overflow my favorites icon except I'm in Firefox and my firewall know how to block such things so the page won't come up.
I think the only alternative that would work would be a completely open-source and free media player that gets included and ported to everything. Then if users still preferred media player they could easily go to Microsoft's site and download. Hell, even if they preferred.... ugh, Real Player they would have the option. Since its open-source monopoly really can't exist so the issue becomes moot.
This would almost be a valid point except for the pure obsurdedness of the whole thing. Where does the bundling stop? You mention Netscape and Lynx, what about Firefox, Opera, the hundreds of other browsers? How do you decide which ones get bundled and which don't? Ultimately you just picking on the fat kid in the corner named Microsoft and not accomplishing further.
Its perfectly valid to include a web browser in the OS simply because its used to obtain all the other software. You mention ftp, without the browser you are stuck with the command line version. I'm sure a frontend could be added easily but the command-line is just plain not acceptable to modern Windows users. Why should they step backwards just because the company that made their product became successful?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting the monopoly, but I think there has to be a better way to deal with besides increasing productions costs for Windows by producing possibly hundreds of custom versions which makes patching an even more lovely experience than it already is. At least with MS products you can go to one central location and patch most of your apps. Last I checked Firefox's patching system wasn't near as sophisticated, same goes for Winamp. (Remember the Winamp bug a while back that allowed for execution of code by injecting it into an mp3)
Competition is indeed a good thing, but there has to be a line between wellfare and ensuring healthy competition. Real needs to face that their product sucks and find some other way to make money.
As for the lack of alternatives... well, right now I have hundreds of choices for media players so it sure doesn't look like WMP is the only option.
Perhaps it would be better to have a screen popup when the user first logs on to their machine which lets them pick their Media Player, very important distinction here that no media players would be installed by default, not even downloaded. The screen would only include links that points to a website that lets you pick simply because the list can change. When there are enough users of a particular media player it could then be easily added to the list. I think that is healthy competition and not just charity for that that make a crappy product such as Real.
I might add that there are plenty of people out there that actually prefer WMP over Winamp, QT, and all the others.
Traditionally you don't need evidence to support staying where you are. You only need evidence when you are trying to get a bunch of people to change their minds.
As for Real, I think their actions speak for themselves. Rather than find a niche to compete in they lowered themselves and turned their product from bad to worse. I remember a time when the player was nice, but even Winamp of the time was better. Basically I'd say they just need to create a much more badass streaming server as that is where the money is, charging for Real One was ultimately a mistake as it was a piece of crap so users felt short changed by it when there are plenty of other free players available. Of course the guys at Winamp have it easy as they are financed by another monopoly. (AOL)
The restart is because there are often 3rd party services that interoperate with say svchost.
You ask a question of which there is already an answer. An SUS server can install all updates and patches silently. On your servers if you know which services it effects then you can safely use the silent install options and never have to reboot. Its done purely as a safety measure, if the updates screws up something important you can boot up with the last known good configuration and things will be alright again. Self-healing is a bitch for servers but a godsend for the workstations.
And that's why you read my comment fully. I said, when you don't have a box with that has internet exposure then you don't need to worry about the updates.
As for requiring reboots, most updates actually don't require reboots, you just need to stop the service it is updating for you. The only difference between how a standard linux distro does updates and how Microsoft does is that a linux distro will stop the service automatically for you.
I'd say it would be best if you used an SUS server and approved every patch that was applied, then you'd know which patches effects which services and you will then only need to update for the deep down changes which occur maybe once a year like a linux kernel upgrade.
As someone who beta tested 98/2k/and XP I can say that that is not the trend, but I would probably add that 98 was never unstable for me. I was most impressed with an early beta of 98 because of that fact. 98 didn't start using more resources until they upgraded IE, if you don't do that then it will run the same resources as it did about a year before its release. 2k and XP definitely improved themselves also XP wasn't beta for that long. Memory management is one area Microsoft managed to improve dramatically which is why I was able to install Longhorn on a thinkpad with 256 megs of ram. It ran okay for a few minutes just paging, then it started to slow down as explorer ramped up to operating capacity.
Personally, I rate stability on your ability to cleanup after using all your resources for a while. I see MySQL do this constantly on my linux box, it will chomp away more and more memory until I just restart the daemon.
On the server side of things I've most definitely had Windows boxes up much longer than 120 days, the only problem comes if the machine has any Internet access, if its just an internal email server then upgrades are rarely if ever needed and so the only time it crashes it when power goes out for longer than the six hour battery backup can supply.
So I rate stability as both short term and long term and I'd say both are about par for the tasks they are commonly used for. Build a computer around the OS and you will find that most stability problems disappear and sticking linux or windows on just any hardware only serves to ask for problems. Hense the reason I will not use linux on a 386 as a router. But I've course, my gateway does a lot more than just routing so I suppose most people can get away with it.
As a Vermont resident I'd have to disagree with your assessment of Dean. Everything he has ever promised he has always done his best to accomplish, sometimes the legislature made it difficult for him but he'd keep fighting until the ultimate good was accomplished (Think Civil Unions) It was a temporary step he created to get himself closer to his goal. He did the same thing with universal healthcare, he knew you couldn't have the government pay for it all so he took steps to make healthcare cheaper and now every person under the age of 18 in VT is insured. I'd say he does do what he says unlike Bush who does one thing and does the opposite.
I don't even for one second think that Kerry will make meaningful changes, but I also think Bush Jr. will continue to make things worse until this country only has but a memory of what freedom meant. Kerry will stop things from getting worse!
Hopefully after a stabilizing period when the U.S. becomes a bit more predictable then the economy will improve simply because stability breeds a good economy.
I have no illusions about either party, the man I was hoping would become the dem candidate (Howard Dean) Is not a serious contender anymore and so I must do what I can to ensure Bush will not be re-elected. I liked Dean because he was my governor for more than a few years and the man actually says what's on his mind. Not a very good politician because of this though.
Sorry but... how so? Every pres right up to Bush Jr basically expanded on what the pres before them did. The difference here is that Bush rolled back all environmental regulations for power plants in the name of the economy, yeah, that worked!
Might add every pres up to Bush was actually for the expansion of technology, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton all really pushed the country to modernize which gave it a very strong economy that took some time to take hold but nevertheless Clinton had a much easier time of it because of all the modernization of infrustructure. So why does our economy suck? Because Bush jr cast out all the imported talent we had and now its easier and often cheaper to setup shop in another country. Bush has had all the same resources as Clinton arguably more because Bush has free reign over the legislature which is the big real reason that the DMCA was passed under Clinton. Of course the DMCA is totally screwing up a lot of research in this country, how do you stay ahead when you can't test what you have?
Basically he's harming our ability to learn and produce new products which is the whole reason America became a military and economic super power to begin with. Our ability to confer with one another meant we could all work together, now with the DMCA most findings cannot be published/shared so work is divided and evolves at a much slower pace. This totally leaves out the banning of stem cell research. Not a complete ban but lets face it, it might as well been since he crippled it. So biotechnology and traditional technologies are being suppressed and surprise surprise our economy isn't really recovering, just temporary ups and downs rather than a slow and steady, might add healthy growth.
I wasn't referring to the DMCA which being an utterly stupid idea that somehow made it all the way through and into law but I was more talking about the PATRIOT Act and how it essential makes you a criminal for saying any negative. Not a criminal per se but it guarantees an investigation into your life rather than taking the statements at face value.
In many ways the DMCA didn't really become effective until this administration because of policy and the passing of additional laws. There is one enigma that is John Ashcroft though. Despite the bedding with corporate america this guy seems to be out to get everybody! He wants complete control over this country and Bush has been slowly handing him more and more control. So as a result we see a lot more action brought on by smaller and smaller tasks. Bushsucks.com would surely produce an investigation because you're not supposed to disagree anymore. This will change as soon as we elect a new Pres whether it be the end of this year or four years from now.
Bah, its worth a little flame cause its so damned true.
Its nice that under this administration we are actually seeing an expansion of free speech rather than the reverse. I can see both sides of the argument. I basically I see it a lot like celebrity. If a lot of people know about you there will invariably be people that don't like you and as long as they don't print or otherwise spread lies then it all falls within the spirit and lettering of bill of rights.
Anyway, this has been a long issue but it is a little different on the net. On the net you find things by their name and so if the name is trademarked then using that name could be a complicated issue. I think its terrible that it was ever even and issue since going to microsoftsucks.com would in no way make a user think they could get microsoft products there.
Yes it hurts the trademark but there has to be limits otherwise the only way to complain about something is to post on slashdot!
Or you can just go to \\computername\c$ or e$ or whatever drive letter you want to access from the Windows machine, as long as you have an admin username and password you get right there. If its an individual file the GUI is far and away faster. Of course, that depends on how well you know the GUI.
A very important feature of Spybot is the Immunize feature which basically puts up a wall, if anything tries to download anything without your authorization it will pop up and let you know and you can decide if you want it to go or not. You can set it to just disable all attempts but sometimes those little installs are necessary.
By real browsers, I think you mean pretty well all browsers, including IE considering I haven't come across a browser incapable of this for easily a few years. That is, a browser I couldn't upgrade within a few minutes.
Slashdot Mirror
I think there needs to be some regulating body. There is just too much money floating around blindly.
I think at some point we all just need to re-evaluate what we consider a bank in the modern age. I continually fail to see how Paypal is not a bank and thus regulated by all of the same government policy.
I've heard the arguments and they just don't make sense. On the Internet some things do need new definitions since they don't reflect world realities.Inherently when something becomes a commodity you cannot charge as much for it. Imagine if the cost of cars scaled the same way. Granted cars are a very bad example since they have no really changed in price at all. Just arguably more features.
Still, how do people make money producing a commodity? There are many ways, refer to sugar industry execs for lessons, same with coffee, and for that matter all the crops. You make your money in quantity, you make it so cheap to produce that you produce a lot more to make your tiny profit margin actually work.Besides that I think you dramatically underestimate the modularity of Windows XP and 2003. They were built with an almost Netware like structure. It's much nicer.
That said, who in the world has the mentality that Windows is the only OS?
Besides that, the web services industry pretty much as a whole. They control both AIM and ICQ which together make up a most impressive userbase. They in the past have followed a lot of the same practices as Microsoft. They would crowd out competition all the time. I remember they went in and bought out my local ISP so for a time AOL was the only option. Then I found another ISP which three years later was bought out by Earthlink. None of the large ISPs are what I would consider responsible corporate citizens unlike my former favorite Ben and Jerry's. Sadly they two have been bought out by a much less friendly corporation.
In another thread I mentioned how you would choose a media player. Basically the first time the user logs in it brings them to a website, preferably at the W3C or some 3rd party and it brings up a list of media players for them to download. Download is the keyword as it would mean no software got added that didn't need to be there. You wouldn't have binaries waiting for you click on, you would just have your media player. The link could even be displayed in random order so as to encourage competition.
As for your other ways, cdrom in my mind is just not an option anymore, the software gets outdated too fast.Now for payroll software, I know its just an example but a very large number of them use a web browser for displaying reports as well as for their help system. The same goes with an increasing number of other types of apps. Just having the browser is not a security risk, how you use the browser is where the risk comes into play.
A system that does less is not necessarily simpler, it just does less. Crippling functionality and calling it simple is not moving forward, it is stepping backwards. Even removing Media Player hurts a lot of 3rd party products which use the player as their tutorial method of choice. So you mention its a minor change in it effects a whole lot more than you can imagine. That doesn't make it impossible by any means, but there is a lot more do it.MS, wouldn't have to make "hundreds of custom versions". Just disentangle media and preferably web browsers so that they can be omitted, uninstalled or replaced by the OEM or final user
Okay, here is the bigger problem, you are expecting too much from the average end-user. They buy a computer and they want to watch DVD as soon as they turn it on. They want to be able to login to whatever IM client they regularly use. (Most know where to get it which is an interesting argument when applied to Media Players)You would have them starting up a crippled OS, not something that would make the majority of the masses happy. Corporate IT would be in heaven though.
Now for the patch system which you seem to have confused with patch availability. There is nothing wrong with the system, WindowsUpdate, or preferably a more local SUS is downright convenient. SUS is even better since you almost never have to reboot to install the patch. I don't need to uninstall compromised software, I have firewalls and proper ACLs that prevent such things from really ever becoming a problem. Non of the worms out on the Net has ever infected any of my networks. Seems kind of strange considering you say the patch system is terrible security.I'll add that no where have I said you had to only use MS products, thats just plain stupid, in a corporate security setting you never rely on one method of protection because everything can be compromised. Traditionally I use Gentoo on my perimeter gateways and routers throughout connected to gasp... even Windows servers! Non of them have direct contact with the Internet so they are mostly safe. In settings where there is more money involved I'll use cisco routers for my perimeter and Gentoo as the next hop in. Things work quite smoothly which is why I screwed myself over in the process. No maintenance work, oh well, least I have contracts to build more networks to tide me over.
That said, even my cell Samsung cell phone can play wma. My Linux boxes? No problem, OS X? Still no problem. Does Real player have all the same support? Hell no, it will run on the PCs, but since you brought up PDAs thats where they lose bad.
Of course I could be wrong about the PDA situation, I just tried look it up, but Real wanted to overflow my favorites icon except I'm in Firefox and my firewall know how to block such things so the page won't come up.I think the only alternative that would work would be a completely open-source and free media player that gets included and ported to everything. Then if users still preferred media player they could easily go to Microsoft's site and download. Hell, even if they preferred.... ugh, Real Player they would have the option. Since its open-source monopoly really can't exist so the issue becomes moot.
Its perfectly valid to include a web browser in the OS simply because its used to obtain all the other software. You mention ftp, without the browser you are stuck with the command line version. I'm sure a frontend could be added easily but the command-line is just plain not acceptable to modern Windows users. Why should they step backwards just because the company that made their product became successful?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting the monopoly, but I think there has to be a better way to deal with besides increasing productions costs for Windows by producing possibly hundreds of custom versions which makes patching an even more lovely experience than it already is. At least with MS products you can go to one central location and patch most of your apps. Last I checked Firefox's patching system wasn't near as sophisticated, same goes for Winamp. (Remember the Winamp bug a while back that allowed for execution of code by injecting it into an mp3)As for the lack of alternatives... well, right now I have hundreds of choices for media players so it sure doesn't look like WMP is the only option.
Perhaps it would be better to have a screen popup when the user first logs on to their machine which lets them pick their Media Player, very important distinction here that no media players would be installed by default, not even downloaded. The screen would only include links that points to a website that lets you pick simply because the list can change. When there are enough users of a particular media player it could then be easily added to the list. I think that is healthy competition and not just charity for that that make a crappy product such as Real.I might add that there are plenty of people out there that actually prefer WMP over Winamp, QT, and all the others.
As for Real, I think their actions speak for themselves. Rather than find a niche to compete in they lowered themselves and turned their product from bad to worse. I remember a time when the player was nice, but even Winamp of the time was better. Basically I'd say they just need to create a much more badass streaming server as that is where the money is, charging for Real One was ultimately a mistake as it was a piece of crap so users felt short changed by it when there are plenty of other free players available. Of course the guys at Winamp have it easy as they are financed by another monopoly. (AOL)
That is allYou ask a question of which there is already an answer. An SUS server can install all updates and patches silently. On your servers if you know which services it effects then you can safely use the silent install options and never have to reboot. Its done purely as a safety measure, if the updates screws up something important you can boot up with the last known good configuration and things will be alright again. Self-healing is a bitch for servers but a godsend for the workstations.
As for requiring reboots, most updates actually don't require reboots, you just need to stop the service it is updating for you. The only difference between how a standard linux distro does updates and how Microsoft does is that a linux distro will stop the service automatically for you.
I'd say it would be best if you used an SUS server and approved every patch that was applied, then you'd know which patches effects which services and you will then only need to update for the deep down changes which occur maybe once a year like a linux kernel upgrade.As someone who beta tested 98/2k/and XP I can say that that is not the trend, but I would probably add that 98 was never unstable for me. I was most impressed with an early beta of 98 because of that fact. 98 didn't start using more resources until they upgraded IE, if you don't do that then it will run the same resources as it did about a year before its release. 2k and XP definitely improved themselves also XP wasn't beta for that long. Memory management is one area Microsoft managed to improve dramatically which is why I was able to install Longhorn on a thinkpad with 256 megs of ram. It ran okay for a few minutes just paging, then it started to slow down as explorer ramped up to operating capacity.
On the server side of things I've most definitely had Windows boxes up much longer than 120 days, the only problem comes if the machine has any Internet access, if its just an internal email server then upgrades are rarely if ever needed and so the only time it crashes it when power goes out for longer than the six hour battery backup can supply.
So I rate stability as both short term and long term and I'd say both are about par for the tasks they are commonly used for. Build a computer around the OS and you will find that most stability problems disappear and sticking linux or windows on just any hardware only serves to ask for problems. Hense the reason I will not use linux on a 386 as a router. But I've course, my gateway does a lot more than just routing so I suppose most people can get away with it.As a Vermont resident I'd have to disagree with your assessment of Dean. Everything he has ever promised he has always done his best to accomplish, sometimes the legislature made it difficult for him but he'd keep fighting until the ultimate good was accomplished (Think Civil Unions) It was a temporary step he created to get himself closer to his goal. He did the same thing with universal healthcare, he knew you couldn't have the government pay for it all so he took steps to make healthcare cheaper and now every person under the age of 18 in VT is insured. I'd say he does do what he says unlike Bush who does one thing and does the opposite.
Hopefully after a stabilizing period when the U.S. becomes a bit more predictable then the economy will improve simply because stability breeds a good economy.
I have no illusions about either party, the man I was hoping would become the dem candidate (Howard Dean) Is not a serious contender anymore and so I must do what I can to ensure Bush will not be re-elected. I liked Dean because he was my governor for more than a few years and the man actually says what's on his mind. Not a very good politician because of this though.Might add every pres up to Bush was actually for the expansion of technology, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton all really pushed the country to modernize which gave it a very strong economy that took some time to take hold but nevertheless Clinton had a much easier time of it because of all the modernization of infrustructure. So why does our economy suck? Because Bush jr cast out all the imported talent we had and now its easier and often cheaper to setup shop in another country. Bush has had all the same resources as Clinton arguably more because Bush has free reign over the legislature which is the big real reason that the DMCA was passed under Clinton. Of course the DMCA is totally screwing up a lot of research in this country, how do you stay ahead when you can't test what you have?
Basically he's harming our ability to learn and produce new products which is the whole reason America became a military and economic super power to begin with. Our ability to confer with one another meant we could all work together, now with the DMCA most findings cannot be published/shared so work is divided and evolves at a much slower pace. This totally leaves out the banning of stem cell research. Not a complete ban but lets face it, it might as well been since he crippled it. So biotechnology and traditional technologies are being suppressed and surprise surprise our economy isn't really recovering, just temporary ups and downs rather than a slow and steady, might add healthy growth.In many ways the DMCA didn't really become effective until this administration because of policy and the passing of additional laws. There is one enigma that is John Ashcroft though. Despite the bedding with corporate america this guy seems to be out to get everybody! He wants complete control over this country and Bush has been slowly handing him more and more control. So as a result we see a lot more action brought on by smaller and smaller tasks. Bushsucks.com would surely produce an investigation because you're not supposed to disagree anymore. This will change as soon as we elect a new Pres whether it be the end of this year or four years from now.
Its nice that under this administration we are actually seeing an expansion of free speech rather than the reverse. I can see both sides of the argument. I basically I see it a lot like celebrity. If a lot of people know about you there will invariably be people that don't like you and as long as they don't print or otherwise spread lies then it all falls within the spirit and lettering of bill of rights.
Anyway, this has been a long issue but it is a little different on the net. On the net you find things by their name and so if the name is trademarked then using that name could be a complicated issue. I think its terrible that it was ever even and issue since going to microsoftsucks.com would in no way make a user think they could get microsoft products there.
Yes it hurts the trademark but there has to be limits otherwise the only way to complain about something is to post on slashdot!Or you can just go to \\computername\c$ or e$ or whatever drive letter you want to access from the Windows machine, as long as you have an admin username and password you get right there. If its an individual file the GUI is far and away faster. Of course, that depends on how well you know the GUI.
A very important feature of Spybot is the Immunize feature which basically puts up a wall, if anything tries to download anything without your authorization it will pop up and let you know and you can decide if you want it to go or not. You can set it to just disable all attempts but sometimes those little installs are necessary.
By real browsers, I think you mean pretty well all browsers, including IE considering I haven't come across a browser incapable of this for easily a few years. That is, a browser I couldn't upgrade within a few minutes.
As for CPU Utilization, ctrl+shift+esc brings up task manager which shows a cpu status right next to the clock.
Also, why use SCP? Are you using pre-OS X which doesn't have nice support for cifs?