Cynical Nation

The L.A. Times says people are abandoning the internet in droves due to the proliferation of adware, spyware and viruses. Now that's just plain sad. How many of these people realize there are alternative browsers and even operating systems out there?

I'm deliriously happy with my Linux boxes, but grim workplace realities force my wife and me to have Windows machines as well. We are both careful, savvy browswers, but within the past year we have both suffered adware infestations so severe that I had to reformat our hard drives.

After that, we switched to Mozilla Firefox and haven't had a single problem since. It's a free download, an easy install, and there's essentially no learning curve. It will even automatically import your bookmarks and shortcuts from IE. As an added bonus, it boasts a few cool features which IE still lacks. We haven't looked back. You owe it to yourselves to give it a try if you haven't already.

Migrating from Windows to Linux might be a tougher sell, but Microsoft has been helping make it a lot easier -- unintentionally, of course. I recently bought a Toshiba laptop with Windows XP preloaded. I frankly find XP to be obtuse, bloated and slow. Then there's that pernicious Digital Rights Management (DRM) crap built in. Also, it comes preloaded with "trial" versions of Microsoft's Office components. They want me to pony up for a full license.

Well, screw that! I've never been a big fan of Word, but I'll confess that I would occasionally use it just because it was already there on my computer for "free." But if I have to pay Microsoft to use it? Won't be happening. This kind of arrogance, customer hostility and greed will not win Microsoft any fans. Lots of companies are already asking themselves why they keep forking over so much scratch every couple of years for unnecessary upgrades. In the same way it took a sucky IE to push people toward Firefox, current sucky versions of Windows may get people to seriously consider exploring the alternatives.

And it's not just software! Intel has a new line of chips with DRM built in. Well fine, go ahead. You're only screwing yourselves. I know a lot of people who have built great computers with non-Intel chips (AMD, for example.) I've never actually done this, simply because it wasn't worth saving 20 bucks for me to buy a chip that my OS wasn't designed to run on. But now, thanks to Intel, I finally have the incentive to explore alternative CPU manufacturers as well.

The Wintel monopoly won't last forever. Monopolies never do (unless they're run by the government.) In this case, the stranglehold will ultimately be broken by the monopolists' own hubris. And it can't happen soon enough.