Staying with my original theme of copying my old post...
If they were serious about a revolt, or serious about sending a message to MS, they should go to CES with all of their PC's running Windows 7 / Full Featured Linux / ChromeOS, ETC... or nothing but Android Tablets.
Sure why not. Here was my last comment minus the revolt stuff. Hopefully We get a few more of these articles. The
Adding android on an OS that's already got a Tablet interface is akin of adding spinner rimmed wheels to the hood of a car because people don't like standard rims. It's Basically Splashtop OS for 2014. It doesn't solve any problem, hell it probably makes it worse since Android isn't exactly designed for desktop use either
It won't
If they were serious about a revolt, or serious about sending a message to MS, they should go to CES with all of their PC's running Windows 7 / Full Featured Linux / ChromeOS, ETC... or nothing but Android Tablets.
Adding android on an OS that's already got a Tablet interface is akin of adding spinner rimmed wheels to the hood of a car because people don't like standard rims. It's Basically Splashtop OS for 2014. It doesn't solve any problem, hell it probably makes it worse since Android isn't exactly designed for desktop use either
They did it for Windows 2000. I read somewhere that MS charged a big company running windows 2000 at the time over $10000 for a single patch after windows 2000 expired.
The best option is to get rid of it. I dealt with this issue back when windows 2000 went EOL (primarily with scientific equipment that would lose certification if tampered with) and believe me you don't want to go there if you can avoid it. You can avoid it if the system is not network facing and you don't use media like USB drives on it. But any level of network from Internet to Sneakernet puts you at risk.
The only major problem I've run into compatibility when it comes to transitioning programs windows XP to 7 is 64Bit and UAC. Disabling UAC, enabling the Administrator account, and using the 32Bit version of 7 will 99/100 times get an old program to run in 7 using XP compatibility mode, and if it still doesn't work, then there's windows XP mode (although that can get infected, you can minimize the impact with NAT or Disabling Network support.)
Hardware is a different story. Many XP drivers will install in 32bit 7 but they can cause bluescreens and the like. I've honestly had better luck with Vista in this regard. Again with UAC Turned off.
Setting your answering machine to 6 rings seems to work for us. they usually stop after the 4th ring and flag the number as dead since they assume everybody has an answering machine.
Another option is to use a thrid party call screener like nomorobo or Google Voice, but I've never tried those so YMMV.
This is nothing compared to the
If Slashdot put as much effort in denouncing that plugin into Actual malicious plugins like Conduit, Dealio and the like, the world would be a better place.
Honestly, I can't believe MS is even entertaining him as CEO. Their almost better putting Apotheker or Fiorina on the list.
I swear to god Microsoft has been infected by some clinical, idocracy level of Stupid or Brain Eating Slugs, and this is coming from someone that has a long Slashdot history of Defending Microsoft on this site. In the past year they have managed to piss off just about every customer sector they have to the limit at a time when they cant afford to lose customers and are the most vulnerable in decades to losing said customers to alternatives. They need to stop screwing around and start listening to their customers and fix the issues they keep bringing up instead of "innovating" themselves into oblivion.
As someone else already pointed out, It's the Ads. If you have ad blocker the top site will be the correct one. Many people do not differentiate between the ads and the real links, so they click on the first link that shows up, downloades it, and get hammered. This is why Ad blocking is so important these days, because Ad firms won't do the job of filtering malicious ads
Right now, in the past 30 days, I've dealt with 6 Viruses like Sirifef, TDSS and various FBI Viruses. This week alone, I've cleaned 9 PC's that had Drive By Downloader Infections and I usually keep that pace every week. I'd say I've cleaned roughly 30+ this past 30 days. If that's not a sign where things are going I don't know what is.
As someone else already pointed out, It's the Ads. If you have ad blocker the top site will be the correct one.
Many people do not differentiate between the ads and the real links, so they click on the first link that shows up, downloades it, and get hammered.
Right now, in the past 30 days, I've dealt with 6 Viruses like Sirifef, TDSS and various FBI Viruses. This week alone, I've cleaned 9 PC's that had Drive By Downloader Infections and I usually keep that pace every week. I'd say I've cleaned roughly 30+ this past 30 days. If that's not a sign where things are going I don't know what is.
It Gets worse.
Just about every popular Open Source program out there is Drive by Kidnapped. Just search for any Open source program on google and bing and see what I mean.
VLC media player, 7Zip and firefox seem to be the popular drive-by bait and switch downlaods I seen. There's even a chromium browser ripoff that impersonates google chrome, albeit with a square chrome logo instead of a round one.
Just about all download sites are garbage anymore. The only one I find that has no Adware garbage on it is nonags.com, but it's woefully out of date.
When I got to tell our customers "Don't Download Anything, Anywhere, Anytime" because I can't trust any download site Including the Windows 8 Store, There's an epidemic going on.
Until AV Programs start getting a pair and flag anything that installs as bundleware malicious, this will not stop, Although you'll never see it because Big Names like Google and Microsoft Both bundle their apps with software.
If its what I think they're going to do (reputation detaction Ala IE9) it won't help much. See my sig if you want to go more in depth as to why.
Besides, The biggest Threats are the following
1) Malicious Forked Open Source Software
2) Installers with Bundled Adware
for #1: look at VLC. there's so many malicious forks of this I can't even count them. Many times they're just Renames, but other times they have more adware and spyware Embeeded in them than I can count. Hell One I found Shows ads before you watch any video.
Another example is "Fast Browser" which is a chromium browser fork with spyware baked in. it looks exactly like chrome and the only difference I can tell is the Icon (which rips off the chrome Icon, only Square) and the name in the about box.
for #2. Lets do a search for VLC and highlight any download site that's not from videolan.org or sourceforge (although I should count sourceforge. they're doing this too now) (obfuscated to avoid clicking)
VLCapp,com
vlcmediaplayer,org
Softonic,com
4soft,org
softwareinstall,com
soft82,com
softdls,com
download-pc,com
download366,com
os-downloads,com
I can all but guarantee that downloading anything from the above sites will get you some Potentially unwanted program or virus. I just wish that someone would make an Adblock plus list like the malware domain list for fake downloading sites.
Now I know that it sounds like I'm Picking on VLC here, but it's just one of the more hijacked examples. You can do this with just about any popular Program. Firefox, Chrome, 7zip, Openoffice, Minecraft, even IE10 and Windows Media Player have software wrappers.
Hell. Even the Microsoft Store in WIndows 8 isn't safe. Do a search for VLC there and the first or second hit is a link to getdesktopapp,com which piles on the junkware. when you look at the app's Publisher. he's doing the same thing with peazip, 7zip UMPlayer and openoffice.
If Chrome does something about these software wrappers then were talking, otherwise it's nothing new from what they were doing before or what IE's been doing for years, and that hasn't stopped anything either.
Or better yet. Is it an Ad if you do a Search for Southwest Airlines.
It's definitely an Ad if the Southwest Airlines ad comes up for say a search for "Delta Airlines" or just "airlines" but as you said, if you're specifically searching for southwest airlines, it's not like you want to go to Delta's site. It's pretty obvious you want to go to southwest Airlines.
Yep.
Just Ask Zediva. They did the same thing with DVD's and got shot down.
Streaming Movie Service Zediva Pays Hollywood $1.8M, Shuts Down
If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt.
