jeffbrantley
join:2000-03-24
Ballwin, MO
| reply to DHRacer
Re: Just the tip of the iceberg...
But the real problem is the spyware creators, not the computer and OS manufacturers. Yes, someone bigger than spybot or adaware should step up to the plate and make a bigger dent in a quickly growing problem, but it is not their responsibility to prevent people from installing things unexpectedly.
When you make it their responsibility you get mostly unusable software out of the box. Where on previous versions you had to turn ON security features, they're now all coming screwed as tightly as possible because of MS trying to please the less savvy masses. I think some of that is good, but it can be a pain to a savvy user such as myself when I have to reconfigure a computer's security (still all in the same convoluted places) just to use it.
I liken this to the US Government trying to keep terrorists from blowing up another building. Yes, they should protect the citizens of the US, but how far are you willing to let them go to do that? There is only so much room you can give them to act before it starts negatively affecting your lifestyle. Not all government officials want to strangle freedom, but it sure would make their lives easier. The same reasoning that lead MS to lock down XP by default would be akin to US locking its borders, processing ALL people who try to legally enter the country, and imprisoning (or shooting) those who try to enter illegally. While that may effectively squelch terrorists from doing major damage, the fear of terrorist strike would slowly be replaced by a fear of being labeled a terrorist in your own country.
I think AOL, Dell and many other companies try very hard to be proactive on educating people about what they should watch out for. However, with fears of litigation and the amount of computer novices still out there, even a big company like Microsoft can't effectively change the situation overnight.
When I originally installed one of the early versions of Kazaa, I had no idea from reading the EULA and installation pages that I was installing some other crap. They've gotten better with their install package, but I think they and other companies that "give" away software try desparately to hide other programs, whether spyware or not, and it's difficult for even advanced users to know what's being installed. I've recently found that even some mainstream sites are exploiting the Microsoft JVM bug to get there "browser helper" objects installed.
On my personal computer, I no longer even attempt to keep information on their that I would consider painful to lose. And as a result, a couple of times that I've had to completely start over from the restore CD, other than a little time lost, I haven't had any pain. This isn't the case for a lot of people, though.
In short, there is more to it than just getting it done. |
