[LennonCook]

Originally posted by Link: quote: Originally posted by LennonCook: quote: Originally posted by Link: Lennoncook, don't you think this crusade of yours is getting out of hand?

No. [/QUOTE]Well I don't mind your affinity with any system other than Windows, but you manage to turn any computer thread to an "I Hate Microsof" thread. It is getting on my nerves. [/QUOTE]I don't hate Microsoft. I hate the security problems that come from alot of their products. It is well documented that IE and Outlook have problems with security. The reasons are also well-documented, but I won't go into that here. Look at Secunia - a completely independant organisation - they have reports on IE, Opera, and Firefox. Look at the number of unpatched things... also look at the dates on them. Note that IE has one bug in particular that is still unpatched from March last year. Scrolling down a bit further, there is one that is only partially patched that dates back to almost 2 years ago.
It can also be shown quite easily that IE has problems conforming to web standards that can help developers quite a bit. For example, the number of CSS bugs is glaring... it can't even handle alternate stylesheets, which basically let you provide a different version of your site (like a skin, but more than just colours.. stylesheets, used properly, can change the entire layout) without the use of any scripts. Ever tried using a transparent PNG? PNGs are good - good compression, good colours, and they have transparency. Moreover, they have levels of transparency such that you can have a semi-opaque image (which isn't possible with a GIF). Problem being, IE doesn't handle the transparency properly. PNGs are, again, a web standard: the World Wide Web Consortium, another completely independant body who control the official standards in all things web design, recommend their use. But to work in the most dominiant browser, your site needs to either forgo all of these handy things (which can make a site look good, and save you time making it so), or you have to jump through hoops to find workarounds to the bugs. [EDIT: For other people who also have problems with this poor standards support, see the blogs How Microsoft can support CSS without breaking the web", and "Unbreaking the web".] This is why I, and many others are trying to spread the word.

I admit that I also don't like Windows, and I am soon switching over more completely to Linux, because I find Windows wholly insecure. But, you don't see me recommending an entire OS change to anyone much. This is simply because a change in OS is alot of work, and the learning curve can be steep. And Windows can be fairly good for most people if they simply follow a few basic guidelines: use uo-to-date antivirus, use a good firewall, do not use IE, to not use Outlook (Express). As I said before, some people also recommend that you don't use MS Office for the same reason, althoug hthe learning curve in this can be a bit steeper. Changing to Firefox will give you many benefits (more than just security - it can make your entire web experience better), and very few disadvantages. If you use sites that use alot of ActiveX (which Firefox;s lack of is a feature), then you might have some problems but when that happens, you are encouraged to make noise to the web master, and if that fails to contribute to the Standards Evangelism project which seeks to have alot of people make noise to webmasters who don't make their sites cross-browser compatable.

As Ross points out, I don't hate Microsoft. I hate the insecurity that they bring, and their misuse of their monopoly. And I despise their lack of progress. I try to recommend people away from the worst of the MS programs (IE, Outlook, Outlook Express) for their own sake. If I truly hated Microsoft, I would also try to move people away from Windows Media Player, Hotmail, MSN (which I might point out, I use myself), Windows Picture and Fax Viewer (which also can't handle PNGs properly), {Note, Word}pad, and probably even away from Windows altogether, in favour of Linux and BSD (and before anyone says anything, note that MacOS X is based on Free(? - maybe Open) BSD). I do try to recommend cross-platform programs when I can for three main reasons:
1) They are what I use, and so I have tried them for myself. I avoid recommending programs that I don't know anything about.
2) They lack the insecurity of potential OS-integration. Alot of IE's problem, for example, is that it is so closely tied into Windows itself that a minor problem can become a major one. I read somethinf recently that described it as "like having a heart attack whenever you have a headache". If something is cross platform, though, it can't tie right into the OS. It is simply not doable to have it both integrated and portable.
3) They can help in the transition if someone ever does decide to switch OSs.

I also try to recommend open source things, because they again can be more secure. Not only because anyone can become a developer and so numerous people are working on finding and fixing bugs, but also because the source code can be analysed by an independant expert. This means that you don't havbe to realy on just the author's guarantees that it is secure, and also that they have more reason to make it so that it is secure: if it can be comprehensively proven that the sofware isn't secure and it was not an accident, but a glaring oversight, their name becomes mud.
But, I don't hate Microsoft. I use their chat network. And in the end, advising against using certain programs can be the most responsible thing that anybody can do. I put it up there with advising people against uninstalling their antivirus.

[ 12-03-2004, 12:58 AM: Message edited by: LennonCook ]