Malware means software designed to function in ways that mistreat or harm the user. (This does not include accidental errors.) This page explains how Microsoft software is malware.
Malware and nonfree software are two different issues. The difference between free software and nonfree software is in whether the users have control of the program or vice versa. It’s not directly a question of what the program does when it runs. However, in practice nonfree software is often malware, because the developer’s awareness that the users would be powerless to fix any malicious functionalities tempts the developer to impose some.
I think the article is correct, but this reminds me of what my wife tells my kids. “You get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit” and I think this applies here.
You know what you are getting when you use Microsoft and Apple, deal with it. Open source is the only safe place to be when it comes to ownership of your files.
That’s it, you get what you pay for.
Windows is perhaps not free, not open source, but it indeed works rather well, everybody speak mostly the same language, not having to deal with distro fragmentation.
Where are the free and open Photoshop or Premiere equivalents ? Where are the Cubase equivalents ?
You can be free to loose your time reviewing and improving other’s softwares, where you can actually use one and create things, instead a 1000th version of notepad.
If FOSS was the cure, it doesn’t have yet healed the world, plagued with its own flaws.
I am sure you know this already but here goes…
Photoshop – http://www.gimp.org/
Premiere – http://www.openshot.org/
Cubase – http://ardour.org/
I am not saying that any of these is a full replacement for the commercial equivalents but they are certainly not a 1000th notepad. For some, they are already better.
The upcoming version of The GIMP in particular seems like it will really close the gap.
Not to mention the competitor to Adobe Lightroom…
http://www.darktable.org/
…and digital painting tools like Paint Tools Sai and Corel Painter (a purpose that many people twist Photoshop into serving):
https://krita.org/
http://mypaint.intilinux.com/
(Both have some very nice functionality. For example, Krita has advanced symmetry features and a very elegant right-click palette which makes working with a tablet a breeze and MyPaint supports an infinite canvas so you don’t have to fret over where to center your drawing when you’re just starting out.
Also, OpenShot isn’t the only Premiere competitor. See also Kdenlive:
https://kdenlive.org/features
…and, for people who don’t need the full power and complexity of Ardour, there’s LMMS:
https://lmms.io/
Edited 2015-11-24 21:28 UTC
Darktable is pretty great, indeed. I’ve been using it to process my RAW photos for a long time now. It also gets support for new camera models quickly.
Edited 2015-11-25 08:56 UTC
You must be kidding here. I have tried Darktable recently on Linux, in order to find viable alternative to Lightroom and move to Linux, but that program is, well, unusable if compared to Adobe LR. It is quite good and adequate for some things if looked from different perspective (as a photo editor on its own), but in comparison to Lightroom it is a joke…
What exactly makes it “a joke” ?
I would find it a bit disturbing if my photography depended on some certain piece of closed software by Adobe. Happily that’s not the case.
Edited 2015-11-25 14:24 UTC
I gave it a try several times, and first problem was I could not find most of the tools and options I usually use, and even after using what is there, the result was basically a corrupt photo. Even returning all the modified settings to their default values, colors/lighting/shading of the photo were totally off. To the point it looked like it was a photo developed using wrong chemicals and wrong techniques. It may have looked a little bit “artistic” though
I admit that most of this could have been because I did not give enough time to learn the program in-depth and also because of some bugs in the rest of the software stack, but the point is that I never had such problems with Lightroom. I started using Lightroom without any experience with any photo editing software whatsoever, I was completely new to photography and photo editing software alike. And yet, all was fine with Lightroom. I learned new things little by little, it did just what I expected it to do, all the functions were easily discover-able and relatively easy to understand, and it never gave me any such unexpected results.
And that is why Lightroom strikes me as a trusty, reliable and predictable tool, while Darktable left an impression of a product made by amateurs.
Well…like you said I think you had something broken there
Here on my Flickr page all the photos are processed with Darktable: https://www.flickr.com/photos/juzzlin/
Edited 2015-11-25 16:37 UTC
Maybe. But once again, if you are looking for a system that would work out-of-box and just do the job without additional troubleshooting, Linux is not for you… There were times when I used Linux as primary OS and liked that hassle with troubleshooting, learning about OS, etc., but now I must be getting old, I just want everything to work.
I’d like to mention one other Open Source program for working with RAW files: http://rawtherapee.com
Both RawTherapee and DarkTable work well under Windows (never tried the Linux versions), but neither intends to replicate the features of Photoshop or GIMP. However they can be suitable replacements for the bundled software that comes with most cameras.
LuminanceHDR is another program I use frequently for specific tasks. It’s completely free and Open Source and available for Linux, OSX, and Windows. http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/
Gimp is terrible software. I’ve used it for 15+ years, and it can’t hold a candle to the usability of Photoshop– or, perhaps it can, if you can find the right invocation to use.
Note– I use, and like, Blender. So arcane interfaces are not unfamiliar to me.
More importantly, I can buy a huge number of books on Photoshop. If I tell a prospective employer I know Photoshop, they know what I’m talking about.
If I say I’m an expert on Gimp, at best they’re going to look at me strangely and ask why.
Soooo…it’s “terrible software”, yet you have been using it for “15+” years? Sure bub, whatever you say.
its the right price. pure and simple. if you don’t use photoshop on a continual basis it’s maybe not worth actually forking out for it.
Yep– It’s tough to run Photoshop on linux, and sometimes, I need to do some quick editing of a photo on a linux system.
Wordstar was “terrible” from a usability pov, and people used it for years.
The linux command line is incredibly powerful– but very user unfriendly. I use it daily. Doesn’t mean it’s any easier to use, it’s just that I know how to use it.
While it’s practically impossible to do the following with a gui, that doesn’t mean what I’m doing is legible:
# for a in `<users.txt`; do mkdir $a; for b in `<dirs.txt`; do mkdir $a/$b; done; chown -R $a $a; done;
That’s incredibly *useful*… but not at all user-friendly.
I didn’t say GIMP wasn’t powerful. I said it wasn’t user-friendly. Typically speaking, the same task in photoshop takes just a bit more effort in GIMP. Sometimes, it takes considerably more effort.
Sometimes it seems it requires a full moon, a sacrifice, and the blessing of Hastur.
Maybe you use GIMP for 15+ years, but I also use it for some 12 years and do it on a daily basis, using it even to earn my living. So let me tell you, yes, GIMP has some issues, but those not are not about usability, if you complain about usability with GIMP then you are yet another parroting the meme “if is not a 100% Photoshop clone, is UI sucks”. Sorry, but the Photoshop UI sucks too.
You will find me complaining (sometime a lot) about dome crazy GIMP former designer that dictated one can’t save as JPEG and have to use the export dialog, but this is not a big issue, just a mere annoyance.
If you want a honest opinion on where GIMP is poor, from someone who *really* uses it, I will tell you the main areas that bother me: one if performance, GIMP can really be slow with big images (this is supposed to be addressed with hardware acceleration, which will happen in some undetermined future, sometime after the migration to gegl). Another area is RAW import, where UFRaw does the job, but has issues, darktable is way better for this task.
No, it’s NOT a “mere annoyance”– explain to the photographer who’s trying to fix the color balance on his photo that he can’t “Save As” to JPG, he has to reach around his elbow to “Export” to JPG.
Then there’s the fact that there’s an ENTIRE WEB PAGE dedicated to “Getting Unstuck in GIMP”.
The one at the bottom is the one that bit me most recently– No matter what I did, I received a cryptic error message about indexed color mode. Click help? No good. Search internet for error message– finally found the problem, changed the mode.
Why didn’t GIMP offer to change the mode for me? Because like most open source projects, I’m supposed to know better. I’m supposed to already be an expert, or be expected to take the time to learn how to be an expert on GIMP.
As a linux user, I’m willing to invest that time. As a photographer who wants an image cleaned up for submission, and may be on a deadline? I’d rather run Photoshop.
GIMP is designed to be used by people who are familiar with how GIMP is designed to be used.
Photoshop may be a pain in the posterior on occasion– but the UI, by and large, is consistent in it’s behavior, and is good at hand-holding the user.
“explain to the photographer who’s trying to fix the color balance on his photo that he can’t “Save As” to JPG, he has to reach around his elbow to “Export” to JPG”
Okay, let me try…
Me: “Save as” will save in gimp’s native format to avoid losing your layers and stuff, if you want a plain old JPG then use the “export” menu that’s right next to it
Professional photographer: Ok, got it
Was that difficult? Can one really be so completely locked up in ones mind that that concept is impossible to grasp?
What’s your opinion on the other side of the coin? That users regularly throw away most of their work by mistakenly saving as a jpg when they used the completely reasonable “save” menu item to save their work?
Both ways have some drawbacks, both are easy to understand and the current solution minimizes the risk of losing your work. What’s the problem?
Edited 2015-11-26 06:45 UTC
It *is* a mere annoyance:
– both Save and Overwrite are on the same File menu, is equally easy to use them via menu;
– for a JPEG edit you can use Overwrite
– keyboard shortcuts are customizable with GIMP, you can redefine the shortcut for Export/Overwrite to something easier to press
Really, I can’t believe you made me to defend GIMP on this… yes, it is an annoyance, one that bothers me too, but not really a big usability issue.
About the indexed color message, that is not cryptic at all, is computer graphics 101. If you do a Google search for “indexed color”, not only the first link goes to Wikipedia but even on top of it there is a quick explanation served by the search engine. That’s anything but cryptic.
If you ask why GIMP didn’t change the image from indexed colors to RBG show you lack *basic* knowledge about computer graphics. Then you wouldn’t be able to save it again as GIF or indexed PNG without another mode color conversion. If your image has indexed colors, someone made the choice to lose some image quality and most likely you don’t want to change that.
A few years ago I took a certification course on graphic design which was based on Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw. With that experience in mind, i can tell: there are plenty of areas where Photoshop is less intuitive compared with GIMP.
One last thing: if you are a photographer wanting a quick change on an image, perhaps GIMP/Photoshop are not the best tools for the job and you would be better served by darktable/Lightroom.
Well I think the user interface of both GIMP and RAW suck.
Both are very powerful software programs, but neither is intuitive or particularly easy to learn.
The difference between Windows and Linux in this instance, with Linux there are few alternatives to GIMP. But Windows has dozens of options including commercial and open source software. On1 is very nice, but I find myself doing most everyday photo editing tasks with Nikon Capture NX, neither of which are available for Linux.
REALLY? You use Blender for what? Its for 3D modeling and animation comparable enough to its commercial equivalents.
3d modeling, primarily– cleaning up (or modifying) STL files for 3D printing as well. It also has a nice engine for compositing graphics, video and sound, but I don’t do much animation work.
You forgot the amazing Fiji, or the featherweight PhotoDemon.
Most of the world runs on FOSS– android, web servers, mail servers, search engines… Even Microsoft has adopted a number of OSS concepts (TCP/IP, NFS, NTP, and soon, SSH) into their OS.
Of course, example, Desktop Linux can’t standardize of which DE to be used officially, because as a matter of a policy in open source world, its all about choices. And there is no one in the FOSS market to have that authority on the choice of a specific DE, so what you will need is a Linux distro that standardize on only one desktop environment, not those Linux distros that offers XFDE, KDE, GNOME and other DEs in their offerings, YET FAILED to provide application support.
Desktop Environment should be standardized in my opinion, so this is one of the reasons why Desktop Linux is still a niche.
It’s called Krita http://krita.org and it’s awesome.
I agree with you but lately also some open source area is not that safe anymore due to different politics. For example, Android is (almost?) open source but still I would not consider it safe storing files on an Android phone (which was bought directly in EU or USA from a brick shop) because Google (thru its services/apps) would have access to them anyway (even if you encrypt your phone).
Edited 2015-11-25 07:49 UTC
Exactly.
Just No. Windows is windows, its increasingly trying to protect the user from themselves. That’s great, and you should be aware of that, but that doesn’t make it “malware”.
FSF should *not* be trusted when it comes to their opinion on security matters. Its true that they have highlighted that Microsoft itself is the greatest source of potential security vulnerabilities on windows, which is like saying water is wet.
There is some compromise most users must make to have an easy to use and secure system. They must be willing to trust some entity. With Windows, that entity must be Microsoft. With Fedora, it would be fedora, et all. And for OpenBSD, openBSD. Windows just goes farther now, by deciding to automatically update in certain situations without explicit consent at the time of the update. Making it “easier” and potentially more secure.
Until something breaks, usually right when you need to give that presentation! Then it’s the opposite of “easier” for most people.
And when you ask them “did you change anything that made it break?” they’ll honestly answer “no”.
The first thing I do on any system is to make sure that it notifies me of new updates, but does not install and preferably not even download them without my explicit approval.
Other than that, I agree with your points though.
Care to share a slice of the unicorn flavoured cake you’ve been eating all alone? Because IMHO “overly optimistic” doesn’t even begin to describe your view.
First of all, you’re comparing putting trust in an unknown entity to putting trust in a company that has given you many reasons to distrust it. Or maybe you should help my feeble memory remember which shady practices e.g. the OpenBSD Foundation has been putting into effect.
I’m oversimplifying, but it looks to me more like the difference between trusting a person you don’t personally know but has good fame and trusting a convicted corrupt despite all evidence.
I think Windows does much more than you said. But then if you believe that the main reason behind – and the main effect of – the erosion of their rights is protecting users from themselves, I have swampland in Florida to sell you. You don’t seem like that kind of guy, so I am really puzzled by your take on the matter…
Edited 2015-11-24 19:00 UTC
You’d have to further define “rights”. There are many, many, many users that would never, ever want to exercise those “rights”, even if clearly explained in plain English what they were giving up. They would always elect to not exercise those rights, if it meant a more secure system with less problems. Previously, one could argue that MS did give people a chance to exercise them by selecting to turn off auto updates. Now, they give users that same choice before they buy a windows device. If you want to buy this, these are the terms for using it.
All of the whining about what MS does to windows comes off as a bit disingenuous to me. FSF has always disliked Microsoft for good reasons. The additional reasoning here, isn’t surprising or that shocking. Its like Republicans objecting to democratic proposals on the budget or visa versa. Sure you can shout louder, and use all the hyperbole you want, but we understand your point of view and this is more of the same. Dog bites man, not news.
The hate is strong in this one.
uhuh. Well, this entire article and thread of comments is so full of bs I’m going to stick my head in a bucket.
Lets just on with using our computers to do whatever the fuck we want to.
For some background on my “Don’t trust FSF for their opinion on security”
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch07.html
That’s just Richard Stallman. What is the actual FSF’s actual policy on security?
Yeah, its RMS. FSF, was founded by RMS, and he still has large say in its operation.
Go ahead and search the interwebs for FSF & security. You’ll only find an article about the recent Bash vulnerability with an off the cuff mention of Free software being a precondition to secure software.
This is, mind you, the org that helped develop and owns the copyright for so many parts of the GNU/Linux Operating system. No documents, guide lines on how to produce secure code can be found on their site. You only see security mentioned, when its a bug in their programs, or something like this where they are criticizing proprietary software. Don’t trust them when it comes to security. Its an after thought for them.
Maybe, but none of that has anything to do with a young RMS aversion to passwords.
And I’m not sure why they have to have guidelines for secure code. There are better resources for that such that there’s no need for them to. What could they say in their guidelines that isn’t better served elsewhere?
Right, organizations that care about security would have them.
Why doesn’t the largest source of code in the gnu linux system have a document like that? They don’t care. Why don’t they care? Their founder more than didn’t care, he saw security as a bad feature.
So you’re comfortable with people holding against you opinions you held 30 years ago?
Also, GCC, an FSF project, is now converted to C++. Do you think that could happen if RMS is as powerful in the FSF as you implicitly claim him to be?
I don’t think you understand how old FSF/GNU is. There weren’t any such guides when they started writing, and they never bothered to write them.
Also, aren’t we saying the same things: They aren’t the ones that wrote any guidelines on security, they leave it up to others to worry about them.
The only difference, is I would say that the above statement seems like we should go to those who care enough to author the security guidelines … for guidance on security. Is that really that controversial of a statement?
Edited 2015-11-25 17:00 UTC
You said that the FSF is untrustworthy when it comes to security, which is different from what you’re claiming here. I would agree with what you are claiming here. That doesn’t make the FSF untrustworthy. Neither does the words of a young naive idealist from 30 years ago who seems not to have that much power in the direction of its major products anymore.
Does that mean I think FSF software itself is secure? Not really. They don’t do audits like the OpenBSD guys, which is really the only reliable way to go about it. However, the OpenBSD philosophy is on par with the FSF’s that openness does make security more possible*. They reject binary blobs.
* Possible, not actual.
Trollololololooooolooolooooo
No- Just No. You’re wrong
Not wrong in your statements overall. But wrong to assert that Microsoft is within it’s right and mostly particularly is doing the best (or the best of a bad situation security wise) for it’s customers.
If Microsoft we behaving like a truly ethical company (which they’re not – but I’m sure Gates at least would have like them to be) – then they have a responsbility as the long time Monopoly holder on personal computing OS’s to give customers continuity in their OS offering’s “holistic footprint” “core mantra”, can’t think of a good phrase.
Basically for years and years and years windows was able to and did run as a standalone OS, and then came near realtime security patches with the growth of the internet and always-on network connectivity but we always had an element of choose what and when to apply.
It’s not purely the removal of this choice, it’s the combining it with all the excessive marketing oriented telemetry stuff (and probably NSA backdooring too let’s be honest) that flies in the face of ethical behaviour.
MS ought to offer (easily) – the ability to run a wholly untouched independent-from-the-mothership PC – and I would argue I ought to be allowed to fully turn off all realtime updates including security updates if I wish and as well as all telemetry channels – and look after the running of my own hardware firewall, be very restrictive to which ports are opened to which applications on which machines and all the rest.
This is apparently not allowed in the new Microsoft world and I don’t think it will be again. Perhaps unless you’re running the Military Intelligence Edition(?)
And it’s a sad thing. Maybe you’re right, in that the overarching objective could be benign, at least from some quarters, and ostensibly is “security” but it’s nonetheless anti-Freedom and I can’t help but think in the long term will be self defeating.
Education on good security policy and technology generally, taught from primary school – up to a high level come adulthood — combined with Openness and Transparency are the positive way forward.
All the recurrent use of phrases like The Dark Web from broadcasters and officials is pretty insidious when really it will be Microsofts, Apples, Googles and Facebooks that offer the reality of the future “Dark Web” – open Internet and open Computing be gone.. that what you really want? really?
I don’t understand this whole FSF argument.
1) MS is proprietary, doesn’t respect user’s rights, and shouldn’t be used.
2) MS does bad things! It shouldn’t do that. It should make a version that doesn’t do those bad things so people can use it.
#1 makes sense to me, I’ll buy that. Don’t use it. You know the risks, and the abuses it pours down on you.
#2 Is contradictory to #1. If you think #2 is right, you should really reconsider #1. That’s the right approach.
I’m putting forward my argument not FSF’s. If it overlaps fine but I do find FSF and RMS go a little ToO far sometimes.
I’d be a little more in line with EFF in the spectrum of opinions on electronic freedoms etc.
It’s not about Open Source everything, all the time, OR trying to state Microsoft (or any other Closed Source OS /electronics vendor) should being pandering purely to the wishes of a subset of their users.
It’s about ethical behaviour – I can only put forward my ideal – and hope they meet their users half way.
As far as polished, commercially supported OS’s we have Windows and we have OS X (I’m putting commercial linuxii to one side as their don’t author their entire software chain in house – and therefore necessarily have somewhat less control) : Between them it’s still a Monopoly – so I still say yes “they OUGHT to offer something a little more standalone and more freedom focussed” – at least as an option
If not – I hope they get strongly judged for it – I wish them ill will, but they deserve loss of market share for that (aspect) of their current direction. [Apple are probably just as bad]
But half this page is pure bullshit.
Parts about IE and XP not being supported any longer? So what! Chrome is cutting support for versions on old operating systems. No one calls it malware. How far back can you get support for FF before they just say upgrade to something newer? Last I checked no company supports any OS forever.
The Jails/Tyrants stuff is also asinine. IOS and even Android are realistically about the same. If AT&T had their way I’d only go through the Google Play Store and I wouldn’t be able to replace their version of Android. And even if I want to I have to jump through hoops.
Edited 2015-11-24 18:44 UTC
> The Jails/Tyrants stuff is also asinine. IOS and even Android are realistically about the same.
iOS absolutely is, but that’s a black mark against Apple, not an excuse for Microsoft. Android just requires checking one box in a settings menu to enable side-loaded applications, and you can side-load F-Droid for access to a full repository of trustworthy Free Software apps.
I love f-droid, but calling it a full repository for trustworthy free software is going a bit far. Its neither full (its not a complete replacement for the play store, many missing apps), nor is the software very trustworthy ( of actually doing what its supposed to without obvious blatant bugs). But yeah, they are free and open source, and probably trustworthy of not doing really bad things on purpose.
Indeed. I am more worried about how *every* Intel CPU (ME and SGX) after the 2006ish has remote DRM built in that can’t be stopped.
That and the fact that x86 stuff is getting more and more “blobbed” (Skylake).
Or the short support window for Intel’s stuff. My Ivy Bridge CPU’s video card won’t be supported on the next version of Windows. The Clovertrail people got screwed over with Windows 10. Why release something if it’s not properly supported?
Edited 2015-11-24 19:29 UTC
Yeah the xp support thing was insane. I think they have issues unrelated to technology or software rights, if they are raising that point. Shouldn’t that be a reason to rejoice and convert those users to a true FOSS solution?
https://media.giphy.com/media/o14YPU6vooy0o/giphy.gif
Last week I went over to my parents to help them with trying to find an application they installed. They just recently updated from win8.1 to win10 on their laptop.
I was pretty amazed at how hard win10 was pushing for monetization, in your face advertising of things. To the point that I think it interferes with actually using the system. The “start” menu was especially bad when trying to look for installed applications. With win7 the start menu is pretty bare in general.
Also I noticed that somehow they still managed to get garbage installed on their system, and their firefox homepage has been hijacked by some app. After having worked with chromeos for the last year or so I’m definitely not impressed with where windows has gone.
Uh… and all of that can be turned off as so many people have pointed out till they are blue in the face and disgusted with those that keep bringing it up. That dog don’t hunt anymore.
The only thing that can’t be turned off outside of the 10 Enterprise edition is data telemetry for error conditions and usage statistics. If that bothers you, don’t use Windows 8.x, 10, or 7 with CEIP turned on. But I warn you, many business class software vendors use CEIP to help diagnose problems and usage trends in their software packages. It’s not a nefarious plan for Microsoft to snoop on everything you type into your computer. Don’t turn it off if you have software from such vendors even if you think you know what you’re doing. Because I can pretty much assure you, you don’t in that case.
Average Joe in many cases doesn’t even care Microsoft is using targeted ad information to begin with. “Oh look, my settings are the same from my desktop to my laptop! That’s great!” It works for them, and the rest goes completely over their heads. Most of Microsoft’s consumer class users don’t know & don’t care. Or know and don’t care because the software gives them a valued service in return.
Second, willfully ignorant users are going to be willfully ignorant users no matter what OS they are on. They are still going to click random items out of e’mails from fraudulent accounts, princes from Nigeria, get the computer equivalents of STDs from shady porn sites… Using Chrome OS, Ubuntu, or OS-X aren’t going to protect people from themselves no matter how much X computer company tries to do so. And just telling them “don’t use Flash/Adobe Reader/IE/etc” is going to go over like a lead brick. Blaming the OS is blaming the wrong culprit. Using alternative platforms doesn’t immunize users from stupid unsafe habits. It can somewhat mitigate mistakes, but it won’t fix that idiot user that gives out his password to “tech support” because “Windows support” needs it to fix “a problem” (What’s Windows? I thought I was using Facebook!) And yes I’ve heard that very exclamation delivered with utter sincerity!
> But I warn you, many business class software vendors use CEIP to help diagnose problems and usage trends in their software packages
No, it is done for the consumer class software, not business. We are in this business and we don’t use that. Our software runs in subnets that often are not routed to public Internet (or if they are, then through password-protected proxy). Every log generated is customer accessible.
Any other way is not acceptable to the customer. In business and enterprise class software, going behind customers’ back means you are going to lose the contract if found.
“The only thing that can’t be turned off outside of the 10 Enterprise edition is data telemetry for error conditions and usage statistics.”
It can:
– HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollec tion -> DWORD: AllowTelemetry = 0
– Disable services: Diagnostics Tracking Service, dmwappushsvc
i’m not going to sit at my parents computer for a few hours just to monkey with it. That type of thing ceased to be interesting about 15 years ago.
“Last week I went over to my parents to help them with trying to find an application they installed. They just recently updated from win8.1 to win10 on their laptop.”
The situation is quite sad actually. Lots of people go through with the upgrade – hey, it’s free and it’s new and shiny and whatnot – to later wake up and look around like newborns. Similar situation as quoted above, went over to help and make them wonder why it took me about 15 minutes to go through gazillions of settings plus some reinstalls before I could tell them now it’s OK to use. MS is quite clearly going for the quite easy exploitation of lots of users who can’t be bothered to understand what the upgrade means settings-wise, privacy-wise, and yeah, one of my favourites, trying to explain why Start->All apps doesn’t actually mean all apps but more like some apps…
Please for the love of God, lets not have this pointless discussion again.
Nobody’s forcing you to read it. That would be malware to do that wouldn’t it?
No, just annoying.
I do use FOSS myself as much as I can (this means for about everything except games) and I agree that telemetry in Windows 10 fits my definition of malware. The part I take issue with is “the difference between free software and nonfree software is in whether the users have control of the program or vice versa”. This may be true in theory, but in practice it rarely happens.
In reality many software packages became so huge, normal users can’t possibly have control over them. They can’t possibly read and understand millions of lines of code, even less modify them.
As one example, take Firefox: many people are unhappy with plenty of decision made by its developers. Still, they can’t do much abut it Firefox is a huge beast. So the solutions are either to use a fork, and then live with the decisions made by the forkers, which can be suboptimal too, either change the behaviour with addons. That’s exactly the same as one would do with proprietary software.
Scenario:
Plug in an external USB HDD to restore backed up photos and music. While the files are copying, you decide to install an application.
Windows:
1. You can’t open the HDD read-only if you wanted to.
2. As you browse the external HDD, Windows will write crappy thumbnail files everywhere without permission. Windows Media Player will actually modify your music files and insert extra metadata in them.
3. While you are installing the app you’ve just downloaded, the installer will look for the biggest drive to put its junk temp files in (this is the default for msi installers). Guess which drive that is? Yeah, your pristine backup drive.
4. Your external backup just got raped.
Linux:
1. You can open the drive read only if you want.
2. Thumbnails if any will be written to the home dir, not on external media.
3. No need to comment further…
The power of Windows is not only in its GUI, lot of interesting options are available with the command line too (like GNU/Linux, you know).
Just have a look at “diskpart” and you’ll be able to mount your HDDs readonly. Not as fun as a checkbox, thought.
Windows never had any command line that could actually be considered usable. The first real attempt at having such command line is PowerShell, and while first 2 generations of PowerShell were relatively useless, latest ones are finally really getting somewhere and might even approach Unix CLI in terms of power and flexibility some day.
The Windows command line or PowerShell may not be as powerfull as Linux CLI, but that’s none of my business. The example above is just ignorance of the Windows Tools.
Diskpart lets you *modify* a partition to be read only, which is a twisted way of doing it.
Plus I often format my drives partition-less to avoid a layer of complications such as alignment or legacy issues, so it won’t work for me.
I agree it’s not a perfect solution.
It’s funny to note that diskettes or SD Cards are write protectable, and noone at Microsoft thought about doing a simple sofware write protection for external drives.
I have a suspicion that hardware write-protect switches present on early USB drives were removed later because of high volume of users returning their memory sticks complaining “It’s broken, unable to write anything to it.” As always, because of ignorance of statistical user, we all suffer.
The FSF has, for years, touted MS Windows as malware just because they don’t like the way MS does things. I agree to some extent that there are hidden thing the common, avergae user is not aware of, and that such things may be worrying… But these guys take this idea, extrapolate it, then exaggerate it, and try to sell it to the whole world in order to try to attract them to their opensource apps and OS.
Linux is good, but for people who don’t like hassles, it is not the best choice, and it will never be. I can attest this as a linux user: I used it at home, and I use it daily at work. I’d never install linux again in one of my personal computers. But on a server, that’s totally different.
At the very end, it is a metter of choice, it always has been, and it always will be. But it’s not correct to try to “preach” about something as if it were the only way for salvation. The people at FSF sound more and more like a religion than like technical guys trying to make things better by improving interoperation…
They’re the equivalent of a thinktank that exists to have official-like opinions that are predetermined. They’re no more religious than the Cato “Institute”. Take that how you like.
I did not say they are religious or that they are like a religion. I said, as you quote, that they sound like a religion (their rhethoric, specifically).
I wouldn’t say they are a religion because I do know they are not. But their rhethoric does sound like it.
Just take a look at the way they say “Tyrants of Microsoft”.
Tipical commie mumbo jumbo, so microsoft have to support windows xp updates for ethernity just becaus a open source commie like it ?…. bullshit
Closed source software is malware. Sure it is.
I just read this:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/11/25/049259/windows-10-fall-upda…
This guy updated one Windows 10 computer with the Fall Update, and found out that during the update other software was uninstalled, without any warning.
Now I ask you all: if any other software did this you would categorize it as malware, wouldn’t you?
More worrying is the trend on reports of uninstalled software: all anti-malware or system utilities. Might be that the algorithms that decide what software to uninstall are picky when it comes to software that interacts directly with the system. Still, this is alarming, for obvious reasons.
… is simply this: do you control the content of your computer or does someone else control it?
The problem with Windows, and I speak as a long term windows user, is that it tries to manage me and my use of it. I don’t like that. I don’t appreciate that. Unfortunately, in the business I am involved with, I have to deal with it everyday.