So MS has undocumented 'features', so what? When you install their
you agree to a licence, and that you are using their software bound by
software their O, noo. You click a button 'I agree' which means nothing for 99.99% of people over the world. Here is a difference. Do not expect people to 'agree' if you do not enforce them to follow this (and if your system do not violate 'common sense'). Do you saw any idiot who read this licenses (I never seen any)? It became (many years ago) some kind of ritual, like indian dances before going to the war.
terms and conditions. Am I afraid big brother is watching, that MS is spying on me? Not really, nothing to see. Do I think that some of these practices are unethical? Yes, they probably are, but when I agreed to that licence I gave up my right to complain. Arguably, the internet would not be where it is today without MS, and that Of couse, you are correct here.
this design principle of automating as many processes as possible is what has made the internet a universally accessable medium, and that this And which makes it a good dinner table for the pests, viruses and so on...
May be, idea was that people read 'license', click button (I agree) and follow it - never write a code which violates this license? But it is not true - 99.99% people do not read it and behave as a common sense is saying not as !@#$ MS lawers fictioned... They see a wall wih a gates - and they go thru this gates, no matter what is written on the posters around (except, as I said, if they see an angry dog next to the gate). /On the other hand, they knows that coffee is hot and waterfall is dangerous and dogs can bite -:)/. You must design yous system for this behavior, not for people who _read a license_. This licenses are good only for 2 goals - (1) use them as a toalet tissue; (2) in case of serious violation allows to suite user if he is in USA... -- they do not change people behavior even a bit. Unfortunately, Internet is not in USA, so even if we will have 100 strict laws prohibiting spyware, it will not help to fight this pests and pets... System must defend itself.
automation creates security vulnerabilities is simply the trade off made for that accessability.
I agree, in general. yes, it is trade off of _easy to use_, but not only. Many of this things are trade off of _MS do not want competition so they keep many undocumented backholes allowing them to have a benefits vs competitors. IE which makes search instead of reporting 'Name not found' is a good example. Yes, I agree, I see a distinction too. I just want to show, that it is not so simple to determine (distinction) and it is not very productive even to try doing it - it is much more important to (1) protect the system, and (2) increase competition having more different systems, and (3) use standards, instead of proprietary extentions...
MS has a monopoly, it's true, but the reason for that monopoly is not entirely because of unfair business practices, it also has a lot to do
their original design mission. That was and still is, to make their OS as easy to use as possible. You and I may know how to use linux, but up until a Yes, and they did it 'too easy to use' so they have a drawbackl in form of viruses, vorms, pests and pets - what a surprise... If it was 5 years ago,
with they already went out of the market because of competition (from others who did not dop it so easy to use but kept systems without a pets and pests). Unfortunately, thie years are over.
couple of years ago, this was just too complex an operating system for the average home user. That much of the MS code is undocumented, is probably a I am not talking about the code; I am talking about API's.
This is spurious logic. You are suggesting that Mac is a more secure
of choice, there are innumerable flaws that beg exploitation. The only reason MS is consistantly the subject of attack, and not Mac, is not because I am not sure - new Mac OS is much more consistent inside than MS. How
I do not know - it was a question. script (which must run inside the sandbox) can install spyware, or change my home page, or see my address book (except if I confirmed administrative password after I was asked about)? Any small difference can play a dramatic role here - when working in Unix, I always login as 'alex' with 'user' permissions - because I can make myself admin temporary by running 'sudo -s' or 'su -'; in Windoze, I must login as an administrator from the very beginning, so I do it - as a result, script can install startup time software in MS but can not in my Unix (just a simple example). And so on. I am not trying to analyze MS vs Unix vs MAC here, but it is obvious that MS have a very serious design caveats, and there is a chance (a chance only) that other systems have not.
Again I think it comes down to choice. I have navigated to a website
because
I have made a choice to view its content and services, I did not however, choose to have spyware installed on my computer. By installing this
I could not imaging, in the nightmare, that Browser can allow any installation (withiout asking me 10 times _do you want_ and _enter admin password please_. So, MS browser is not trusted as a browser but is a very big spyware by itself. John, you are 90% right here. Unfortunately, yes, it (spyware adware pests pets etc) is a trade off of _easy to use_. But unfortunately, MS killed competition so you have not any chance to do anythin good until they have a monopoly. All you can do may provide temporary reliefe, but can not solve a problem. Until we will be able to choose between a few vendors and few systems, with a different levels of _easy to use_ but with (in turn) different levels of trust. Mozilla is not worst than MS IE, but due to IE monopoly people just do not debug their applications on mozilla - and it creates a monopoly. problem is here, not in the 'trusted software'. The same with many other systems. (Example - in Russia, people are not so tied to IE because they have not so many fancy on-line services; as a result, Opera and Mozilla % of usage is much higher than in USA - they voted for this browsers. In USA, it is impossible because !@#$ web service vendors are not interested in testing their web services on anything than IE. This shows, that pets/pests problem is 95% IE problem, not overall Internet problem). Good law can help - it will wash out spyware from part of Internet, but it is not enough without good software and good OS. Fortunately, spyware problem is much simle than SPAM problem.