In history? I don't know. I imagine the South Sea Company or the East India Company are among the contenders. Companies like Standard Oil would also crush Apple. General Electric, Microsoft, Intel and Cisco both hit, in modern times, higher market caps than Apple.

Here's what I got from a quick Google.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/08/22/a-history-of-ridiculously-big-companies.aspx

Point taken, but Apple is not the most valuable corporation "in the history of the world." Even assuming market cap is an accurate representation of value, that's only true for Apple if you don't adjust for inflation.

Thanks. I had not seen that. I have actually seen that notification in IE9 before, actually.

A hash doesn't identify an executable unless you have a list of the hashes of every executable rather than just a blacklist of malware hashes.

And again, this applies only to files downloaded with IE.

And again, the logs are wiped on a regular basis.

Even ignoring all this, you've yet to explain why it is the common man understands perfectly the ramifications of downloaded from an app store, but not that of SmartScreen. Especially when SmartScreen's potential problems are explained.

OK. Care to show me what about that statement is untrue?

What? Can you cite a source that says it works via reputation and not by a simple black list?

What difference does that make from a privacy perspective? How do I legitimately install apps on my (imaginary) iPhone outside of Apple's install channel?

Again, Microsoft is not reporting what you install. It is sending a filename and hash of executables you download via IE to Microsoft to compare against a blacklist.

This is on top of the regular SmartScreen filter, which reports URLs to Microsoft to compare against a blacklist and which has been pretty uncontroversial for years, same as Chrome. (I still disagree with it.)

So you don't like it? Well, there's a big notice explaining what it does giving you the option to disable it. Or you could use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or whatever and it gets reported to Google instead of Microsoft.

So much users are too dumb to understand the simple description of SmartScreen, but bright enough to think through the implications of downloading apps through the Microsoft Store?

Microsoft doesn't "scan your computers for apps." They compare the filename and hash of executables downloaded with Internet Explorer with a known blacklist.

Nope. I'd rather have a local database, even though I assume that's more difficult to keep up-to-date with what I imagine are rapidly changing blacklists. Firefox, for example does this.

But this behavior is (unfortunately) pretty bog standard, and in the case of IE, it's nothing new, so it seems a little bizarre to get all outraged about it now when all Microsoft has added is a check on file download hashes.

Flip the checkbox to turn SmartScreen off then.

It's equally as simple. Probably simpler - never used an Android phone. Both are opt-out from your description, and the SmartScreen functionality seems to be outright presented as an option on installation.

I am also pretty sure that Chrome does, in fact, come standard on Chrome OS and I assume that the default web browser on Androids is Chrome or some variant thereof that sends your URLs to Google same as Chrome does.

Should Linux repositories, the Apple App Store, the Google Store, and the Microsoft store provide a similar warning, since they actually glean more information from what you download there?

I mean, all Microsoft gets from this is a filename and a hash. Unless Microsoft has a hash of every program in existence, that doesn't do them much good for spying purposes. On the other hand, they know everything about the app you're downloading from their store.

I'd rather it be done locally as well. I suppose the reason it's done remotely is so the blacklist can be updated and maintained on the server side. That's a perfectly good reason - Chrome sends all your URLs to check against a server-side blacklist as well - and it is probably better from the security standpoint.

Long-term, though, I think the remote check opens up a potential for vector for invading privacy in the future, which I'd rather not have.

Do you opt-in to Chrome sending your URLs to Google?

Because that would be the equivalent analogy. SmartScreen sends URLs and file hashes to Microsoft, the exact same way Google's anti-malware sends URLs to Google to compare against a blacklist.

And besides, that, Google "collects" information about what you download through their store, in the same sense - you can't download the app without them knowing your IP, which is the same information Microsoft is getting. If you really cared about this kind of privacy, the app-store model is a much bigger threat than some file hashes being sent to Microsoft.

Just read the Ars Technica article. The Slashdot headline is ridiculously slanted, as was the previous story.

While I disagree with it in principle - I'd rather it be local, like how Firefox uses a local version of the bad-sites list, this is not in any way unusual or awful behavior, and it's mostly a good idea, and Microsoft has been completely open about how and why they're doing this and giving you an easy way to turn it off. It is not some privacy invading nightmare. Microsoft is not keeping track of what programs you download (unless, obviously, you get them through the Microsoft store.)

Slashdot stories are becoming more and more ridiculous. The summaries are never even worth reading anymore.