Survey Finds Windows XP Users “Open-minded” Toward 7

Norton is a virus all in itself (2009 is improved though).
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Too true. Saved a number of client's PCs by removing Norton and installing something which doesn't treat the computer like it's b****. The big smiles I get from them after using their computers without Norton are enough to continue my crusade I think.
 
TechieSooner said:
Do you?

Using the car analogy, it's like saying I'm going to take the airbags out of the car. I mean, they add so much WEIGHT to the car, it's sucking my MPGs...
Also, the hassle of putting on seatbelts is just ridiculous. The chances of me getting in a wreck are so remote, why the heck do I need to wear a seatbelt?
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I do wear my seatbelt because it's the law. But you can still easily be killed in a car accident, belt or not. ~34000 people in the USA were killed in traffic fatalities last year regardless of seatbelts and airbags. Probably more than suffered any real loss from computer viruses.

With your paranoid attitude about something as minor as a computer virus you should look at the driving risks and never leave your house. Life is full of risk, you accept them and move on or you cower in fear.

I drive my car, I run windows without AV and I ride my bicycle with the wind in my hair. I don't spend time worrying about any of it.
 
When it comes to AV, there's two reason I use it. One is me, the other, is everyone else who's computer becomes connected to mine in some shape or form. It's kind of like going to school when you've got the flu, I don't want to spread any viruses/trojans/spyware around which may be lingering in my PC if it's unprotected.
 
Chuck Norris doesn’t check for viruses, viruses check for Chuck Norris :D
 
The life of a thread on [H]

Phase 1: Relevent discussion
Phase 2: Car analogies
Phase 3: Death
 
Snowdog said:
I do wear my seatbelt because it's the law. But you can still easily be killed in a car accident, belt or not. ~34000 people in the USA were killed in traffic fatalities last year regardless of seatbelts and airbags. Probably more than suffered any real loss from computer viruses.
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Wearing a seatbelt makes your chances of death go way down though. Talk to some firemen sometime... Every single one of them would tell you the ratio of dead bodies they pulled out wearing a seatbelt to dead bodies not wearing a seatbelt is very very small.

Snowdog said:
With your paranoid attitude about something as minor as a computer virus you should look at the driving risks and never leave your house. Life is full of risk, you accept them and move on or you cower in fear.
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Exactly my point. Why should I worry about viruses when it takes me 5 minutes to grab an anti-virus product, and never think about it again?
I've got better things to worry about than someone gaining my account information because I have a false sense of security.
 
Snowdog said:
I do wear my seatbelt because it's the law. But you can still easily be killed in a car accident, belt or not. ~34000 people in the USA were killed in traffic fatalities last year regardless of seatbelts and airbags. Probably more than suffered any real loss from computer viruses.

With your paranoid attitude about something as minor as a computer virus you should look at the driving risks and never leave your house. Life is full of risk, you accept them and move on or you cower in fear.

I drive my car, I run windows without AV and I ride my bicycle with the wind in my hair. I don't spend time worrying about any of it.
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Computer virus minor? Dude you need to go back to school. No, seriously, go back to school.

There's nothing wrong with being preventive. Your attitude is irresponsible.
 
Snowdog said:
I do wear my seatbelt because it's the law. But you can still easily be killed in a car accident, belt or not. ~34000 people in the USA were killed in traffic fatalities last year regardless of seatbelts and airbags. Probably more than suffered any real loss from computer viruses.

With your paranoid attitude about something as minor as a computer virus you should look at the driving risks and never leave your house. Life is full of risk, you accept them and move on or you cower in fear.

I drive my car, I run windows without AV and I ride my bicycle with the wind in my hair. I don't spend time worrying about any of it.
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lol, I'm sure someone will be enjoying you're bank account soon.
 
TechieSooner said:
Exactly my point. Why should I worry about viruses when it takes me 5 minutes to grab an anti-virus product, and never think about it again?
I've got better things to worry about than someone gaining my account information because I have a false sense of security.
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Sounds exactly like this is the case. You install AV and think you are impervious. I know users with AV software that have their computers full of so much malware that they pay someone annually to clean it up for them.

AV software is not a guarantee.

I contend that with a third party firewall, no common MS vectors (No MS office/outlooke/IE), noscript/flashblock and not clicking on dubious things, my computer will stay cleaner than average (and has).

But I still do all my business in Linux. :D
 
ICOM said:
I wouldn't say that [H'ers] are "uninformed".

We've all seen. We've all used it. Vista is pretty much a piece of shyt. What's FUD is trying to convince anybody that it's not.
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Well you're really proving that statement wrong. You're watching too many Mac commercials.


What exactly has vista done to you?
 
vengence said:
lol, I'm sure someone will be enjoying you're bank account soon.
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I haven't run an antivirus unless I thought I had a virus in 10 years. When I thought I did, I ran housecall or MBAM.

Ounce of prevention > pound of cure. Don't click every porn ad you see, and download every EXE you see, and chances are, you're in good shape.
 
RADEoN said:
I haven't run an antivirus unless I thought I had a virus in 10 years. When I thought I did, I ran housecall or MBAM.

Ounce of prevention > pound of cure. Don't click every porn ad you see, and download every EXE you see, and chances are, you're in good shape.
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Thats nice. ;)
 
RADEoN said:
I haven't run an antivirus unless I thought I had a virus in 10 years. When I thought I did, I ran housecall or MBAM.

Ounce of prevention > pound of cure. Don't click every porn ad you see, and download every EXE you see, and chances are, you're in good shape.
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back in the late Windows 98 SE/early Win XP days which I guess had higher danger level than the current time, I was more confident than you, until a virus corrupted most of my files, then you know what I did.

thats from my PC at work

2lw2iyx.jpg


program was installed in 7/4/2009, I don’t watch porn and if I did I wouldn’t do it at work and if I wanted I won’t be able to do it because porn, youtube, messengers, facebook, …etc are all blocked.
 
Snowdog said:
Sounds exactly like this is the case. You install AV and think you are impervious. I know users with AV software that have their computers full of so much malware that they pay someone annually to clean it up for them.

AV software is not a guarantee.
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You're right. It's not impervious. However I'm protected against 99% of threats. You're protected against 0%. I like my odds.
 
TechieSooner said:
You're right. It's not impervious. However I'm protected against 99% of threats. You're protected against 0%. I like my odds.
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If I am protected against 0% how has my computer stayed virus free for years? Clearly I am doing something right. You also seemed to have missed the last line of my post.

I like my odds better.
 
Being protected against 99% of threats is meaningless if your behavior spurs or invites threats. On the flip side, no protection at all isn't a bad deal if your behavior doesn't spur any threats whatsoever. So, it goes much deeper than "I'm protected and you're not".

Most of us fall squarely into the latter category of users. As such, our usage behaviors don't necessarily dictate strong defensive measures.

Defensive measures are born of necessity. If that necessity is absent, the defenses are unnecessary, but admittedly still good practice.
 
Snowdog said:
If I am protected against 0% how has my computer stayed virus free for years?
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Luck. Preventative measures.

The same exact reasons why I've never had a virus on my machines. But just because I've never been involved in a car accident doesn't mean I'm going to remove my air bags and seat belts from my vehicle, either.
 
phide said:
Defensive measures are born of necessity. If that necessity is absent, the defenses are unnecessary, but admittedly still good practice.
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This is basically it. Occasionally (porn) even intelligent people (porn) do things or visit sites (porn) that make their computer more vulnerable (porn), but given there's virtually no performance hit from running a good AV (NOT NORTON) it's a good idea to do so to allow you to keep doing those things (porn.)

Also, you two arguing about the Start menu is ridiculous. It's a UI preference. Neither of you are right, you just prefer different methods. I like the new Start menu more, and I think there's probably more people who fall into that camp or they wouldn't have made the change.
 
Snowdog said:
Read the whole sentence it is about not spending both my money and my time (even more valuable) when it isn't necessary.

I also have a 8800GT with no plans to upgrade that in this computer unless it breaks.

I bought my car in 1999 and I am still driving it today.

Some of us just aren't into the consumer treadmill anymore. I only upgrade things when my current item stops meeting my needs, not just because something shiny and new comes out.

Like my 8800GT, my windows XP continues to meet my needs and both will for some time to come. We might be discussing windows8 before I am looking for a new OS.
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Whatever you buy or don't is up to you, great, I'm just saying it's an illogical reason. With a monitor that cost over $1k and the other hardware that *might* last you 5 years (?) what's $100 for an OS?
 
I should say not particularly logical rather than illogical completely. 'What I have now is ok by me' is at least a simple statement of personal preference.
 
Madman0 said:
Whatever you buy or don't is up to you, great, I'm just saying it's an illogical reason. With a monitor that cost over $1k and the other hardware that *might* last you 5 years (?) what's $100 for an OS?
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I can go and download any OS right now, but I wouldn't waste my bandwidth on ME or Vista, they might be free but even that isn't an incentive to switch from XP, 7 will be free too however, on the whole it's looking a lot better than Vista which is a significant plus indeed.

Until 7Lite matures like nLite has (let's not mention vLite) I don't think I'll ever switch all the way, more likely my 178MB ISO of Custom made XP will be my main and 7 will be my secondary so I have the best of both worlds.

As far as bot nets go and virus attacks go all I have to say is you people need to be putting the blame on the users, XP can be as secure or unsecure as you want it, while it's true that Vista/7 are more secure out of the box than XP you still need to remember most of these people you spiel about aren't going to be in a position to drop 200-400$ on a new OS so Win9 could be out and it would be irrelevant.
 
Madman0 said:
Whatever you buy or don't is up to you, great, I'm just saying it's an illogical reason. With a monitor that cost over $1k and the other hardware that *might* last you 5 years (?) what's $100 for an OS?
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It is a quite logical to not spend money without an actual reason. Just like I never plan to upgrade my video card in this machine, I will keep the OS that works until it doesn't.

If it were free I still wouldn't be upgrading. Notice my sig, that I dual boot Linux. I am using Kubuntu 7.10. Far from the latest and greatest, but it does what I need it to do.

Notice also that Kubuntu is free. But I consider it a waste of my time to upgrade simply for the sake of having the newest version.

I need a damn good reason to spend the time reinstalling everything on my PC. I plan to keep XP until I upgrade to a new computer years from now. This is in fact what most people do. The money is incidental, but still seems like a waste with perfectly acceptable OS already in place.
 
KayossZero said:
I can go and download any OS right now, but I wouldn't waste my bandwidth on ME or Vista, they might be free but even that isn't an incentive to switch from XP, 7 will be free too however, on the whole it's looking a lot better than Vista which is a significant plus indeed.
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Here's the thing. I've got Vista x64 SP2 on one of my harddrives and Win 7x64 RC 7100 on another harddrive. I boot into which ever one feel like using for that day, but it doesn't matter that much because they're so similar. That's the issue with the 7 praise/Vista bashing. My computer isn't that great (6860FX laptop) and I've never felt like Vista is unnecessarily bloated while using 7. 7 is a bit zippier, but that's mostly just with quicker animations and a few things being more intuitive/usable, plus Vista is installed on a 80% full 5400rpm hd while 7's is 30% full and 7200rpm.

Is 7 better than Vista? Definitely. Is it a lot better? Not really. Any praise for 7 should automatically lift up Vista as well because they're nearly identical under the hood.
 
Jaerb4 said:
Is 7 better than Vista? Definitely. Is it a lot better? Not really. Any praise for 7 should automatically lift up Vista as well because they're nearly identical under the hood.
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^That's also the reason you probably won't have any compatibility issues when 7 releases like there were for Vista's release. Since its launch, Vista has built up a hefty backing of updates and support, and 7 piggybacks off that. I've yet to find a piece of software/driver meant for Vista that won't work with 7.
 
Actually, I take that back. I couldn't get a USB polling override to work on 7 like I did for Vista. I think that's about it though. Others have gotten it to work though.
 
Jaerb4 said:
Also, you two arguing about the Start menu is ridiculous. It's a UI preference.
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The reality is that you can't make any valid complaint about any aspect of Windows without someone getting defensive about it. No matter how positively you describe your overall experience with a Microsoft product, if you happen to utter the most minor gripe about it, you'd better be prepared for the Microsoft fan parade to hassle you about it (then you get called a monkey, an old man, etc., etc.). That's just the nature of this and most other forums.

From a perspective of usability, a number of changes to the Start menu over the years have been negative, and usability is something that can be viewed and evaluated pretty objectively. Usability either improves, stays the same or degrades. Moving from an expanded list of items to a scrolling list of items isn't a usability improvement by any stretch of the imagination (though it might be viewed as a cosmetic one). The addition of other ways to access items in that list are nice, but they don't negate diminishments in usability elsewhere.

What's curious to me is that Microsoft seemingly doesn't spend much time thinking about many of these usability issues. UI decisions seem to be made haphazardly at best, and it's a little annoying when Microsoft takes steps forward in the UI only to take steps back.
 
phide said:
From a perspective of usability, a number of changes to the Start menu over the years have been negative, and usability is something that can be viewed and evaluated pretty objectively.
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They've negatively affected your usability, whereas I can attest that they've improved mine. Therefore, it is very much subjective.
 
The learning curve is there, and you need to learn the new OS. I have my wife finally on Vista, just as W& is to be released. :rolleyes:
 
phide said:
You can use any OS insecurely if that's your prerogative. If your prerogative is to run your system securely, then you can use XP for that without much issue. UAC makes it easier, but its absence won't stop you from being able to run a secure machine.

They'll get over it :)

It can be. I can personally attest to that.
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This man speaks the truth. I never run a resident antivirus on my XP machine, only occasional scans. Just put your machine behind a physical firewall (router), spot-check any iffy downloads before you run them, and you're fine.

Of course, it has an advantage since it only gets used for gaming and Visual Studio. My email and general internet messing around gets done on my Mac.
 
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