Computer Viruses

[Anayo]

I would like to find a few of the people responsible for cooking up computer viruses and crucify them.

[Ziggy]

lol, did you get one?

[CRTGAMER]

That and Spyware jerks. Dip them in honey and stake on fiery ant hills.

So wha happen?

[Jerkface Killah]

virus' are annoying. For all the PC owners out there (which I was for 7 years), I recommend Avast Home Edition which is free. I feel that there is something wrong with paying for a subscription for virus protection. Basically a company like Symantec or Norton is saying, "to use your computer safely, you must buy our program and continue to pay for it forever. And our software will conflict with your other software, or find 'false-positives' in system files, bringing your system to it's knees."

If you are a Mac owner, like me (I still have Windows partition for gaming), then just stay up to date on software updates and stay smart. The built in protection is sufficient as long as you download from reliable sources.
Thoughts from anyone?

JFK

[Octopod]

I use AVG. It is free also. Is Avast preferable to AVG?

[Anayo]

Yes, I got one. In fact I'm not even posting this with my desktop; I'm using a Linux machine in the hallway. On my windows PC, I got some fake "Oh noes! Your computer is infected! Click here to download our anti-virus thingy!" message.

This has happened once already. It's not a terribly big deal since I back up all my important files, but it's damnably inconvenient to have to reinstall all my programs.

I guess I posted this topic cause it occurred to me how frustrating it is that there's people out there who purposefully create programs just to put my computer out of commission. It made me want to find the man responsible and kill him in some really slow and unpleasant way, then catch it on video and send the tape to his wife and children. Yeah, that's how I feel right now.

I've been flirting with the thought of isolating my Windows desktop from the Internet altogether and using a cheap laptop with Linux on it for email/browsing.

One more thing? Mac can go to hell. Don't get me wrong, their OS is really sturdy and has lots of cool programs for productivity (Adobe CS4 comes to mind), but they're infuriatingly proprietary. You can't install their bloody OS on anything other than THEIR hardware with THEIR seal of approval on it. My desktop is some weird mongrel I put together by ordering separate parts cause I didn't want to part with an arm and a leg for a pre-packaged powerful machine.

[vlame]

ubuntu

[Anayo]

I believe that's what I'm using right now. As in the computer I'm using to post this message.

[Jerkface Killah]

You can't install their bloody OS on anything other than THEIR hardware with THEIR seal of approval on it. My desktop is some weird mongrel I put together by ordering separate parts cause I didn't want to part with an arm and a leg for a pre-packaged powerful machine.

I see where your coming from. If you want to customize your rig and save some money, then building a PC is a good option. I guess with Mac's it's a quality control thing. If they build the hardware and the software, then they, and they alone, are solely responsible if something goes wrong. Then you can take it to one of their stores to have it fixed. With a PC you have a ton of control but you are on your own for troubleshooting, for the most part anyway. Again, I had a PC from '98 to about '08 when I picked up a second hand Mac then I sold it and bought an iMac last year. It's pretty powerful and I have a Windows partition for gaming. All my day to day stuff is on the Mac side, where I don't worry too much about virus'.

JFK

[Anayo]

I suppose if I were to come out of the closet and admit it I wouldn't mind having the mac operating system. I just don't want to buy Mac hardware. So it's kind of :-/