Piracy costs consumers billions

j4ck455 said:
:rolleyes: isn't it strange how these malware problems mostly affect computers that have a version of Microsoft Windows installed. I suspect it is Microsoft's shoddy Software Engineering and bug ridden operating system versions + ancillary software that are costing everyone money.
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Bias much?
You would think the real reason why mostly machines with windows installed have malware problems, is maybe because 90%+ of all machines have windows installed

Switch to the parallel universe, and we have you rolling your eyes at how so many Linux machines are infected
 
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Mike Hoxbig said:
Can't be, everything "just works" with Apple fanboys.
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Actually that's true. Work computer. Win XP machine. Very little installed on it except for latest Office, Acrobat Reader, Firefox and Norton AV. Guess what, it still manages to slow down to a crawl, almost every day. Disk thrashing, screen takes forever to redrawn and unresponsiveness at the most inopportune times. This happens on other Windows machines too and not even overloaded ones.
It also happens when Office is NOT running.

OSX - no such problems despite having more stuff installed. No such problems despite still running Snow Leopard, after upgrade from Tiger -> Leopard. Not reinstalls, but upgrades. No slowdowns.

Microsoft is a sad, pathetic joke. The garbage operating system one has to use. It's purely ridiculous.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
A side effect of a smaller user base. If that grows, rest assured that malware infections will too.
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There actually were more viruses in Mac OS' past than now. Most of the stuff now is trojan horse. Wild virus numbers are not actually increasing significantly despite Mac users most likely being more affluent and so probably having access to more credit card and bank account data on their machines. Also OSX machine numbers are increasing, as Apple now sells more Macs in Eastern Europe, South America and Far East, never mind that more Westerners are buying Macs.

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/11/24/apple-mac-malware-short-history/

Note how much worse early Mac viruses were compared to the mostly trojan horses we get now. Note also that some of them came courtesy of Microsoft, and were cross platform. Even many current Mac viruses are due to faulty JAVA.

Still a handful of dangers is much better than millions of variants which we see for Windows. I don't know about you, but I think it's safer to swim in a poorly chlorinated pool than in an actual sewer.
 
_kabal_ said:
Bias much?
You would think the real reason why mostly machines with windows installed have malware problems, is maybe because 90%+ of all machines have windows installed

Switch to the parallel universe, and we have you rolling your eyes at how so many Linux machines are infected
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That's simply not true. Windows auto-run, macro viruses, OLE - or whatever the thing which allowed you to run code in word processors, running root by default, no firewall, etc just made Windows such a virus friendly place. Heck at some time or another MS also prevented pirate users from getting updates which meant these computers served as reservoirs of infection and formed botnets.

Say what you want about UNIX, but Linux/OSX/BSD never had such problems.
 
biometrics said:
Troll?
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No, not trolling, just pointing out that it is flawed to say Linux is secure. If here was a larger user base for it, there would be malicious software designed to specifically target Linux. As it is, Windows has a larger user base and is easier to find holes than Linux, there is more malicious software out there.

Also take into account that Linux users know what they are doing, they won't install dodgey software that could potentially infect their pc, whereas the general Windows user isn't so knowledgeable and clicks on any brightly colored ad on the Internet.

Yes, Linux is more secure than Windows, but to say in absolute terms that Linux is secure is really not correct. Open Source does not always mean it is better.
 
"According to a new study by the IDC, consumers across the globe are spending billions of dollars fighting viruses and malware-induced cyber attacks brought on through the use of pirated software – "

I thought that Java and Acrobat Reader were free?
 
_kabal_ said:
Bias much?
You would think the real reason why mostly machines with windows installed have malware problems, is maybe because 90%+ of all machines have windows installed

Switch to the parallel universe, and we have you rolling your eyes at how so many Linux machines are infected
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Everyone, including yourself, has a biased opinion when it comes to operating systems. My biased opinion is based on years of experience with Microsoft products and Linux.

For a long time, the predominant webserver implementation has been Linux-based and not Microsoft, [-]if[/-] The Internet would have imploded a long time ago if most of the webservers out there relied mostly on Microsoft Server OSes.
 
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What a ridiculous and half-arsed attempt at an article...I sometimes have to seriously question stuff that gets published on this site as "factual" news.
 
foo cheque microsoft. dont even need to read the article. same crap different year. wanted to get a copy of win 7. cheapest was over R1000. but they release 8 for R500 and less. idjits. then they cry over piracy. price your stuff better then i will buy....
 
Er - I run Linux. Costs me nothing to use. And I don't even need pirated software either. Though not scared to watch a pirated movie.
 
@stixx : fallacious arguments. Linux is secure because it's designed on the back of Unix, which was designed in the first place as a multi-user multi-tasking o/s. Windows is based on DOS, a single-user single-tasking o/s. It is not easier to find holes in Windows - rather the opposite. Having the source code of Linux and applications makes it far easier to find holes. The bigger thing is that that also makes it easier to fix the holes in the first place. Hence the reason for Linux being safer. And it's not because Linux is less popular - on the contrary, considering that 95% of the Top500 fastest computers in the world run Linux, as do most of the smartphones, routers, adsl modems, mp3 players, web servers, etc Linux is way more popular than you might think. There's a bigger world out there than the desktop.
 
Space_Chief said:
Actually that's true. Work computer. Win XP machine. Very little installed on it except for latest Office, Acrobat Reader, Firefox and Norton AV. Guess what, it still manages to slow down to a crawl, almost every day. Disk thrashing, screen takes forever to redrawn and unresponsiveness at the most inopportune times. This happens on other Windows machines too and not even overloaded ones.
It also happens when Office is NOT running.

OSX - no such problems despite having more stuff installed. No such problems despite still running Snow Leopard, after upgrade from Tiger -> Leopard. Not reinstalls, but upgrades. No slowdowns.

Microsoft is a sad, pathetic joke. The garbage operating system one has to use. It's purely ridiculous.
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Too little RAM and/or no graphics card driver is not Windows XPs fault.
 
Ugh... if this even is true then the people who install malware need some education
 
Chingha said:
"According to a new study by the IDC, consumers across the globe are spending billions of dollars fighting viruses and malware-induced cyber attacks brought on through the use of pirated software – "

I thought that Java and Acrobat Reader were free?
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LMAO, good one

Also, total troll article. MyBB should be ashamed of reposting it in it's original form. Should've been linked with a headline like "troll article claims..."
 
supersunbird said:
Too little RAM and/or no graphics card driver is not Windows XPs fault.
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LOL, plenty of free RAM, at least on Task Manager, and problems occur not even under heavy or any loads at all. I've been using Windows since 3.1 days and it's a pile. OSX just works.
 
I was going to write a whole post picking out the errors/omissions/blatant ambiguities in this article one-by-one, and then I realised that would be doing it more justice than it deserves.

Apologies to the staff writer who obviously put a lot of time into it, but your editor should have warned you.

It just sucks that a tech site with staff who all KNOW BETTER still chooses to propagate the absolute rubbish that Microsoft feeds them (and us).

rpm, is this part of your advertising deal with them? Care to comment? Would appreciate your side of the story because this kind of publishing makes a massive myBB advocate (me) very sad and moderately embarrassed :crying:

Side note: do you know what else costs businesses billions? Software licensing.
 
"Piracy is costing you billions"
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And there I was blaming fast cars, women, booze, poor decision-making, bad luck and karma for my fiancial situation...
 
akescpt said:
foo cheque microsoft. dont even need to read the article. same crap different year. wanted to get a copy of win 7. cheapest was over R1000. but they release 8 for R500 and less. idjits. then they cry over piracy. price your stuff better then i will buy....
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The internet works mostly the same as real life. If people cant get it or afford it,they will steal or pirate to get it. Only on the net the possibility of getting caught is small.

Edit: In SA the possibilty of getting caught in real life is small aswell so its about the same :)
 
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