people need to start getting smarter about how they get their educations, and classify their incomes.

Okay, granted. I'm just saying that the pat reason for not using Google and Bing that 90+% of people are going to ignorantly spout (privacy) is a dumb reason, because none of the other options are more secure, or any more private than the first two. Not one of them is. And, reading through the thread, not one poster has proposed anything that actually would be secure or private.

There are a plethora of other reasons though. Why not be creative, and think out a plausible reason this would be an issue to begin with?

What's wrong with Google again, that isn't wrong with every single other option listed?

If anyone says "privacy," and the recommends any search provider based in the US, UK, or Europe... they're getting smacked with a fish. I don't know how. I don't know when. But I will find a way.

When I was a kid, I didn't fit in with any group. There were the jocks, the nerds, and a couple of other groups. It was fair to say that if there was a group of kids that fit into a group like that, I was more than likely getting beat up by them. Today, they call me a nerd, but I'm not. I've never been a nerd. You don't have to be a nerd to work in technology, or even write code. I'm just a normal guy with a family, trying to make a living.

I have to tell you that most of the time, the thefts (usually by direct competitors) are minor, and I don't generally care. If I cared about every snippet of code I've ever written that's showed up on some other website, I wouldn't be doing anything else. But there's a lot of different kinds of theft to consider. It's one thing when someone borrows a javascript from you. I usually use that as a sales tool. "Hey look, this code is good enough, that you can see my competitors using it" it's funny, and it works. It's another thing entirely when they break into your home and steal your proprietary cms that you've been developing for five years. I've had that happen too. That kind of thing is usually handled with a lawsuit... if they're dumb enough to actually use it without paying you. As far as clients leaving, and the new company putting their names on my websites, that's usually not malicious (even though the practice sucks). More often than not, it's handled with a polite phone call to the new company.

Shareware was awesome. That counts.

I had a Nintendo you insensitive clod!

You bastard!

My name is Case, so I've got you beat.

I know this is a bash Microsoft because you can thread, but there were a few things in Windows 8 that I really liked.

1. 1 The new file transfer dialog actually shows accurate information about the file transfer when you're passing files between hard drives, or pasting files. This has been a long time coming, and it's worth using Windows 8 for this feature alone, in my opinion.
2. 2 I now have control bars on every screen, not just my primary screen. Not having them for every screen has been my single biggest complaint about using ALL OTHER versions of Windows.
3. 3 The new task manager is awesome. Just awesome. They did absolutely everything right.
4. 4 Surprisingly, it's actually a little faster than Windows 7 and vista when I run adobe products on Intel.

My biggest complaints with it have been that you need classic shell. You just can't run the thing without it, and Classic Shell is a hack. It's not as good as the original built in feature that they discontinued. Have also seen Windows 8 cause mouse issues. Not an issue on my desktop, but on my wife's laptop, it's been a huge pain in the ass. And Metro/Modern/WTF? I could take or leave it. It makes no sense on a desktop anyway, so I don't find myself using it... at all, actually.

The mockups were neat, but I have a strong suspicion that this is not the general direction that Windows is going. There was a youtube video that came out in 2005, that detailed the future of the OS, and a theoretical touch screen device, that still looks odd. But it really does look like Microsoft and others took it to heart. That's a huge mistake. There was so much totally untested technology there that's just not going to work. And morphing new layers on top of Windows is not the answer.

If ever Microsoft was going to actually invent something, this would be the time. I think that the crowd has it wrong on Windows 8 this time, throwing out the baby with the bath water, but I don't necessarily think they're all wrong either. As usual, I'm going with the pragmatic approach. The key things I noted were good reasons to use Windows 8 over Windows 7, especially with multiple screens. If you don't like Metro/Modern/WTF, don't use it. If nobody writes apps for it people, it goes away. As far as the Windows 8 desktop, it's not perfect. But it's never been perfect. It is better though, once you install Classic Shell.