What is your point ?.. I am now informed of your preference.. So I counter with (guess what ) similar qualifications as you have.. I've used the same phone OS's as you did, and I am more comfortable with Android.. I also run Linux at home, and work all day providing tech support to Windows and Mac users.. I can own and run whatever I want, and I can tell you if Mac OS and Windows (XP/Vista/Win7) were free, I would still be running my Linux.. But higher road, I won't call any of them crappy (although Vista is pushing it).. Here is the thing.. there is no "I win !", all of the operating systems we've talked about are very functional.. Some may be better for some people who are less functional, but that doesn't mean the OS or those that use it are better than the OS's or people who use something else..

So if I choose to smoke.. and I have paid $2 per pack in taxes.. If I get cancer, then my treatment is all paid for.. Right ? .. I don't think so.. If I have insurance, whatever limits I have are used up, and then whatever else I have that can cover the costs are used up.. and then I either live or die with a huge debt.. Show me where that tax money really goes.. It goes to pay for commercials with coughing babies and old people smoking through their neck.. It does not go to pay for anybodies treatment.

Yes I a word for sure.

So, like FPS deathmatches ?.. Why not, that way you can infidels many times over and over.. surely better than the real thing.

Maybe I have become paranoid, but unless a link is obvious I am usually checking the bottom of the browser to see where a link is sending me before I click it. I don't think there are that many redirects to Bing or Google.., but sure there could be many to Bing or Google search results, but those as well as direct links are easy to spot.. Broken links should lead to Web page not found errors, although I know some configurations can lead to your default search engine.. If Bing is your default, then there you go.

And it could also be done with FTP or via email attachment and numerous other ways.. The percentage of illegitimate use is high, but you could say the same thing about email and web sites in general with their spamming,phishing and malware, We are not going to shut down the protocols and technology that make those possible any time soon.. But all this really comes down to is whether or not anybody has a right to control what bits I am sending and receiving, and even more importantly to know what those bits are and be upset by them.. If someone intercepts these companies communications and is found out, you can bet they will have a different view on privacy "as it applies to them".

It's not like your choice is permanent like a tattoo or anything.. Forget browsers, I used to do the same thing with whole distros until I found trends in what I liked and narrowed down my choices.. I realized that for the most part I could make pretty much any distro to my liking with some work. There are some fundamental things (mostly package managers/reps) that do work better in others that matter.. But if I felt that I was missing out, it would be no big deal to test drive something else to usually find that my original choice was better after all.

Really ?.. I haven't had to worry about a dependency ever for an update.. EVER.. and thats not just my apt based distros.. I have not had to worry about dependencies at all for about 6 or 7 years now, and when I did, it was when I was doing some more complicated things involving compiling programs.. But that's the nature of the beast isn't it ?... When you do something more complicated, it's more complicated... I have gone the way of less complicated, and if it's not available in the repositories, then I don't need it.. Linux doesn't need to be difficult, and it's not unless you try to make it that way.

For the thousands of people who realize that maybe a Linux distro isn't that difficult after all, and decide to wipe this version of Windows, that doesn't seem meant for their desktop, off their hard drive.

Its flat out a campaign of misinformation and fear.. The buzz words are "Socialism" which is supposed to be synonymous with "Communism".. Then the efforts at any reform to get costs under control, which actually involves some mandated Capitalism, they still say it's Communism.. The percentage of people who don't actually know what those words mean (along with Fascism and propaganda) must be extremely high.. all they know, is it's bad and if the talk show host of the moment happens to call something one of the buzz words, then it must also be bad.

Stealing is a harsh word.. and not really what is happening.. If I like your car and I buy one just like it, is that stealing ?.. If I buy a similar car that has everything yours has is that stealing ?.. If I build a car from scratch that that has everything your car has, is that stealing ? .. I say no to all... Now if I take your car and you no longer have it.. well, that would be stealing.

No, that was a compromise that when combined with forcing insurance companies to maintain a smaller profit margin or reduce rates is supposed to lead to reform of what is already a broken system... The majority of people who already have medical insurance, never use it.. just as the majority of those now forced to get insurance will never use it.. This same type of reform was done in the auto insurance industry, and it did lead to reduced rates.. The alternatives are to leave things as they are, or go even further and take over the whole thing to make it manageable.. Medical Insurance used to be almost a given when you got a job, but it has gotten so expensive it is hard to find a job that offers it without you paying in 80 percent.. perhaps if the reforms lead to reasonable rates we will get back to those "good ol' days",, but I'm not holding my breath.. Still if I end up having to pay for it, I'd much rather it be reasonable.

Your correct.. the metaphor only works if your the leading light behind an FTL test flight..

I have had my Hotmail hacked too many times.. and I use a mixture of upper and lower case letters with some numbers.. I have finally resolved myself to delete it if it happens again.. I have 3 other email accounts that have not been hacked.. I really only have Hotmail because I used to use Messenger.. I don't know what Hotmails log in policy is, but maybe they need to find a way to suspend it after x amount of unsuccessful tries, and force the owner to recover.. yes you might have many customers frustrated for a time, but as it becomes too difficult to hack, the hackers will go elsewhere.

Your contention that the Galaxy S's Android v2.1x -> 2.2x -> 2.3x is somehow better than the 3GS's: iOS 3.x -> 4.x to 5.x is stupid.

I didn't say it was better.. I said it was the same number in less time.. and there are also incremental updates for security and bug fixes besides the version updates, even on older versions that you seem to think are abandoned.. As to the developers woes, well they seem to be doing a good job if the majority of people don't know there is a problem.