They can't, literally. But they can get the same effect. I'm not at a windows box now but I've done it. Find the right folder, and in properties set the file permissions to deny writes in that folder. No more flash cookies.

And no more features on lots of sites. I.E. from then on every youtube video you load will be set to eardrum-breaking volume, no matter how many times you turn it down. (Well, for me at least, all flash sound comes out way louder than anything else on my system.)

> Why did Google initially agree to censor search results in the first place if this was their philosophy

Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/01/google-in-china.html
"Obviously, the situation in China is far different than it is in those other countries; while China has made great strides in the past decades, it remains in many ways closed. We aren't happy about what we had to do this week, and we hope that over time everyone in the world will come to enjoy full access to information. But how is that full access most likely to be achieved? We are convinced that the Internet, and its continued development through the efforts of companies like Google, will effectively contribute to openness and prosperity in the world. Our continued engagement with China is the best (perhaps only) way for Google to help bring the tremendous benefits of universal information access to all our users there."

Google honestly thought that their presence might have a positive effect. It did not. They always knew they were compromising their morals/ethics/goals, in the hopes that they wouldn't have to forever. Unfortunately, it didn't play out that way.

I consider myself to be only mildly above average in regards to typing speed. A two minute test of "The Enchanted Typewriter" at typingtest.com, however shows:

Net Speed: 102 WPM
Accuracy: 98%
Gross Speed: 104 WPM

I suspect we need a better sample.

Did you read what was written, and you quoted?

These are NOT marginal costs.

> ... significant number of your web sites' visitors are still running Explorer or Netscape versions 3 or 4 ...

Bull plop.

On my site, with 7211530 "hits" as reported by AWStats:

6,096 (0.0845%) Used *any* version of IE before 6.0.
    812 (0.0113%) Used any 3.x or 4.x version of IE.
5,721 (0.0793%) Used *any* version of Netscape.
2,588 (0.0359%) Used Netscape 3.x or 4.x.

You have to add together all of IE 6.0 and Netscape to even break one tenth of one percent.

In fact, only:

138,957 (1.9269%) Used any version of *Firefox* before 3.0.