You cannot blame *any* OS for poor administrator configuration of rights. Blame the sysadmin.

Although I understand and mostly agree with the point you are making, I think it is worth noting that Microsoft operating systems do share a large chunk of the blame.

Microsoft operating systems have never been easy for a home user to use when logged in as a non-Administrator. (I single out home users since I believe they are the majority of drive-by-download victims.) They all have their little `gotchas` when trying to temporarily elevating one's normal user privileges to that of administrator to accomplish a task.

Have you ever tried to setup a person as a non-Administrator on Windows XP Home? Microsoft purposely hobbled that OS to make it impossible to work with the system like an administrator should be able to. At least it is getting better, from what I've heard about Windows Vista Home and 7 Home. (So I've heard. I stopped supporting Home versions of Microsoft operating systems after the headaches caused by XP Home.)

So I feel like one certainly can blame the OS for encouraging users to run as administrators when those OSes make it overly difficult or impossible to temporarily increase privileges to accomplish needed tasks.

It sounds like Suddenlink has somewhat of a monopoly in your area. If that is the case, they are probably regulated by your local government. Although I am not optimistic this will have much effect, you should complain to the franchise authority / regulatory commission that oversees Suddenlink.

If enough people did, Suddenlink would have no choice but to deep-six this program.