Pirated software is bad. In fact, it’s illegal. But sometimes money is tight, and I won’t hesistate to hop on IRC and look for a pirated copy of Windows.
The WGA is the one thing that scares me. The philosophy behind the project makes sense to me, but I don’t feel safe with Windows “phoning home” multiple times during my computer session. How long before the government has this power?
Microsoft needs to be careful. They are already in trouble for not letting software users choose which operating system they want to use. To me, the word anti-trust is starting to find more connotations.
There’s a cure though. With the rapid mainstream popularity of Linux distros like Ubuntu, open source software has been reborn. There are plenty of blogs out there talking about people who have switched from Windows to Ubuntu and have never been happier. There are even parents who install Linux on their children’s first computer, which not only teaches them to be better computer users, but also protects them from spyware opportunities.
I am happy to see that Microsoft is migrating the bulk of their services over to the web though. They even plan to invest some resources into search technologies, a field where Google has them beat tenfold. Keep your eyes on all domains associated with live.com–this is Microsoft’s new sandbox. For everyone’s sake though, I hope the Redmond ramblers take a step back and look at their most important asset: their users.
This entry was written by me, posted on August 1, 2006 at 3:47 am, filed under
Why I Can’t Trust Microsoft
Pirated software is bad. In fact, it’s illegal. But sometimes money is tight, and I won’t hesistate to hop on IRC and look for a pirated copy of Windows.
The WGA is the one thing that scares me. The philosophy behind the project makes sense to me, but I don’t feel safe with Windows “phoning home” multiple times during my computer session. How long before the government has this power?
Microsoft needs to be careful. They are already in trouble for not letting software users choose which operating system they want to use. To me, the word anti-trust is starting to find more connotations.
There’s a cure though. With the rapid mainstream popularity of Linux distros like Ubuntu, open source software has been reborn. There are plenty of blogs out there talking about people who have switched from Windows to Ubuntu and have never been happier. There are even parents who install Linux on their children’s first computer, which not only teaches them to be better computer users, but also protects them from spyware opportunities.
I am happy to see that Microsoft is migrating the bulk of their services over to the web though. They even plan to invest some resources into search technologies, a field where Google has them beat tenfold. Keep your eyes on all domains associated with live.com–this is Microsoft’s new sandbox. For everyone’s sake though, I hope the Redmond ramblers take a step back and look at their most important asset: their users.