There are few things in this life that scare me like...
Discovering a nail in your front tire after getting back from a wild ride down a mountain road.
Standing before a judge.
Speaking in public while naked.


...and stuff like this!!

Folks Gator is SPYWARE, and one of the very worst, and to hear that MS is even talking to these folks is just all kinds of bad news, make no bones about where all this is going.

Microsoft May Buy Adware Developer
Software giant has been in discussions with the company behind Gator.

Adware companies such as Claria (The folks behind Gator) use software installed on a Web surfer's computer to collect information on surfing habits and use it to target pop-up advertisements based on the surfer's interests or online activities. Buying an adware company could allow Microsoft to better exploit advertising opportunities around its MSN search engine and other Web properties.

There are fears within Microsoft that gathering such usage information could lead to a backlash against the company, according to the Times' report and another in The Wall Street Journal. (NO DUH!!)

Microsoft officials were not immediately available to comment on the reports.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,121676,00.asp

Where can I go to invest in Mozilla, cause this will boost their share of the market bigtime...

Reminds me I need to re-load Firefox on my new PC.

<span style="color: lightblue">You can't - they're a non-profit. And this will do good things for more than them: it may help to put an end to the "linux is not ready for the desktop" drivel, when more people who say that actually try it. It could also help to boost Apple's market share, if their recent announcement that they are switching to Intel chips means Mac OS X will run on x86 (which is what Windows runs on).

What does Apple switching to Intel chips mean, exactly? Are they more accessible or something?

They're more standard, meaning btter compatibility. But it does seem that Apple wasn't immune to their own marketing [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Oh and yeah, this is scarry. But rest assured, if MS tries to pull off something like this they0ll be caught before they even release it officially, and it's bye bye Windows, hello boycott.

<span style="color: lightblue">From a technical point of view, a fair bit - about the same as changing between Intel and AMD on a Windows box, possibly a bit more (depending on whether they're just changing manufacturer, or changing architecture).
From a user's point of view, possibly alot (if they change to x86, basically every OS in existance (except specialised console/PDA ones) would be able to run on the same system (although, ofcourse, it's already possible to have all of the Unices on PPC - this would just add Windows into the mix), possibly absolutely nothing (they haven't actually said 'x86').
From Apple's point of view, changing to x86 would be a gamble - it could reduce vendor-lockin (which is a fairly major revenue-getter: "buy OUR hardware"), but it could also increase popularity of MacOS.

In short, noone realy knows yet except for Apple and Intel.