Why are so many people Anti-microsoft?

same reason why we dont like H2's

 

I grudgingly have to work with Microsoft products all day long too... My work involves Microsoft and Windows itself acutally...

I am anti-microsoft because as much as they try to make decent software, they end up making really shoddy software...

But they have a long history of using their market position to bludgen their stuff into various markets to the point where quality products are no longer valued as much as products that "everyone else uses."

That's really my biggest beef with Microsoft... their software is widely used not because it's the best out there, but because it's widely used...

 

I dislike them because they really force choice out of the marketplace. Look at what they did with Netscape... they undercut the cost of the browser, forced NSCP out of business, then let their own browser (IE) development fall by the wayside.

I was at a Microsoft conference recently where they touted "fat clients" as they future. Again. Imagine having to download and install amazon_store.exe to shop via amazon.com. They don't want the web to be a platform, they want the OS (specifically their OS) to be the platform.

Any company who plans like that... well, you just instinctively have to dislike them.

 

I'm not anti-Microsoft, but rather, I expect things to be "form follows function." Mac OS is robust, based on UNIX, will run Wintel, Linux, UNIX and Mac OS. I have worked in both OSs and Mac is more intuitive, creative and "fun." When I must run a Wintel program, I do it on my Powerbook or desktop Mac.

I am a tool user. I don't want to spend time programming. Mac tools are intuitive and easier to use, even in higher-end products. Mac software is more fully integrated (iLife, iWork, iCamera, etc.). Mac OS updates are legitimate and constant. I use my Mac 8 to 10 hours six days a week. Keynote presentations outperform and outshine Powerpoint.

I find the same high quality and "form follows function" in Prius. Not perfect, but Prius does what I expect it to when I expect it to. Just as with Mac hardware and OS, a lot of critical thinking is packed into every component of Prius. I am not rigidly tied to the MS way of doing things. Mac is flexible, adaptive and consistent. I have minimal exposure to virii.

On a Mac "god is in the details."

 

There's more...

I hold Microsoft at least partly responsible for the computing experience nowadays.

Now in some ways, it's good... computing is powerful and versatile, and you can do a lot of things with computers...

but there's the BAD as well... and the bad is that computers are these awkward devices in our lives that demands that we adapt to the way that computers behave instead of the other way around. Think about it... frustrations like the BSOD have become commonly accepted in our way of life... the fact that we expect our computers to fail on us, and that it's somehow an inevitability... I put at least some of the blame on Microsoft.

And moreover, Microsoft has no taste... this pretty much sums it up :

 

It's sad that in the 10 years the industry has been mostly MSFT dominated, there still hasn't been a consumer operating system as advanced as what was on a 15 year old Amiga.

And no, I don't count Linux quite yet even tho it's my primary (really, only) OS.

 

If I were given a choice, I wouldn't use Windows or Outlook, or Word or Visual Studio at work... but I don't have a choice.

I understand what you are saying, and the reality is that in order for things to work smoothly, you need the commonality there, and Microsoft does provide that commonality... Microsoft provides a platform.

But just because they do provide a platform, doesn't mean the ecosystem that lives on that platform is healthy...

If you have some time, I urge you to watch the interview with Andy Hertzfeld on NerdTV... It's the first one, #1

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/shows/

... and listen to what he has to say about Open Source...

The dilemma is as follows... you need a rich platform to develop on... no matter what, and you need standards, and all that... but unfortunately, the only way that this commn platform has been achieved for decades was through a commercial company... and that platform has been private. As an ecosystem, having a privately owned platform isn't healthy...

So what is the solution? what if everyone owned the common platform?

Andy says it more eloquently than I can, so I suggest you watch his interview all the way through.

 

Over the decades we've come a long way in the plumbing department... OSes are more advanced than ever and are awe inspiring from a technical standpoint...

but i agree. Over the last 2 decades, since the days of the original Mac, and the original Windows, very little has advanced in the way we've interacted with our copmuters. If you think about it, we're still working on the same model as Douglas Engelbart introduced way back in the 60s.

 

As someone who used to work in IT, I can say I believe Microsoft has a stranglehold on the industry, killing competition and innovation. Almost everything Microsoft has marketed was developed and proven first by other companies. Who will innovate for the future? Not Microsoft.

The bonus of this of course is everyone knows how to use everything, because little ever changes!

 

Windows is full of holes, is buggy, unreliable, prone to attacks, inconsistent, slow, has a terrible interface design, its complicated, and overpriced. In my work and schooling Ive used both pcs and macs almost everyday since 1992 ish. The only drawback to mac and the advantage that pc has is that a lot of software is designed for a pc and not available on a mac. For ex: if you ever want to flash the firmware in your external dvd burner... better have a pc handy.

and for the record Im not anti-microsoft as much as I am pro-well made products.

 

It was a sad day last year when I finally junked my Amiga 2000 after years of neglect.

Still wish I could define a drive named Letters: again...

 

Oh, I know... I've spent a lot of time plumbing around OS internals.

But the only feature AmigaOS lacked that Windows has is memory protection. And believe me, Windows lacks many Amiga and/or unix features.

I mean drive letters? Could we be any more 'going-on-three-decades-old'....

 

Heck, I'm extremely PRO-Microsoft.

Main reason:

It just works, and I absolutely abhor spending my time working out computer problems.

A lot of people say MSFT is geared towards "point and click" idiots, but have you ever used a Mac? Talk about simplistic interfaces that don't let you configure anything beyond a damn "yes or no". At least Windows will give you error codes to chase down...

and Linux, no thanks, at first it was a terrible waste having to "configure" your damn keyboard, although I've heard it's vastly improved these days.

I think what it boils down to is this: If you're a computer geek, you're likely going to hate MSFT, but if you're the kind of person that's simply interested in general market video games, and the Office Suite, you're going to love it. Plus, almost any peripheral you buy can simply be plugged in and recognized by Windows. Again, there are few things I hate more than having to spend hours troubleshooting computer problems.

h34r:

 

It just works?

Ah, you must be using Microsoft Windows: Theoretically Non-Broken edition.

Last time I tried to configure my wireless networking on NT, I plugged in the adapter (USB) after installing the software. Used the provided D-Link configuration utility to enter the network settings. It connected. Then disconnected 30 seconds later. Wouldn't reconnect. Rebooted. Same problem. Used the internal Windows stuff to get it working. Wouldn't connect.

Plugged same card into linux. Went into control center. Configured. Worked. Every single time.

Yes, Linux used to be a bitch to set up. But it's come a long way. If I pop in an audio CD these days, a player starts. Fairly normal. If I *browse* the CD, I have MP3, .Wav, .OGG, .AU folders and the like. If I drag out of those folders, it converts on the fly. Talk about 'it just works'.

:lol:

 

You been falling off your bike one too many times? And were you wearing a helmet? :lol:

Its funny when someone said Microsoft is great. And usually means that they are not in the tech field... [that is unless they work for or invest in Microsoft... :lol: ]

 

This is always going to be one of those "which camp are you in issues"; but since I've been in all 3, I'll keep it to this:

• I switched from using a Mac to Windows. in 1990 -- partially because I was coding Windows at work, but also because Windows was showing a lot of promise as an OS. Windows NT had a lot of capability that the Mac didn't when it came out.
• I just switched back to a Mac this year -- for the same reason. Windows security and stability is a joke; Mac has the advantage of both Unix underpinnings, and a much tighter security model. It has all the apps I want to use. And I'm not running virus/spyware checks all the time.
• My main development computer at work is Linux. It's great, but... I don't have to maintain it. It's a lot of work, which is why I have a Mac at home.
• If gaming is your thing, then you won't be satisfied with a Mac. However, why are you satisfied with Windows? It looks to me like hard-core gaming has gone to consoles.

And finally, my oft-repeated statement: There's nothing like writing Windows applications for 15 years to make one really despise Microsoft.

 

Being a computer programmer, I have worked with Microsoft and non-Microsoft products on desktop and server.

As a desktop user, the Microsoft products are sufficient. Sure, the desktop crashes occasionally, but for the average user, this is outweighed by the ease of use. Yes, Linux is getting better in the ease of use category, but until there is a common method of configuring and installing programs, it will not quite be up to par in this category. Yes, there are the packages, but when a new program is released, youjust have to hope that there will be a binary release for your distro, or hope that someone else will create one. Of course, there is always the fallback off "make configure && make && make install" for most programs, but that requires the user to actually use the "scary" command line. Then if you want to install new drivers not included with your distro, that often requires a kernel configuration and compilation. I personally love Linux and the configurability it provides, but would not reccommend it for the average desktop user.

On the server end however, I consider *nix to be the best choice. Anyone I would trust to maintain a serious server should have the knowledge to maintain a non-Windows box. The added configurability is almost required for a good, well tuned server, and it can not be beat in terms of reliability and uptime. This is much more important of a consideration on a server than on the desktop, as most of the time much money can be lost from server downtime.

 

Feh, Linux is just a baby Microsoft OS in the making; in terms of being a black-box turn-key solution for enterprises, where one is locked in to binary updates.

Look at DragonflyBSD. It is forked off FreeBSD4 (which decended from the original AT&T UNIX, but BSD created tcp/ip) and is currently being developed by Matt Dillon, a name of some previous Amiga fame (besides his recent ISP and FreeBSD kernel work). He's bringing all the OS advancements the Amiga used into Dragonfly to prove it still works. You could check it out.

As for Microsoft, they cannot be forgiven because they made the world accept BSODs (blue-screen-of-death), reboots-after-updates, the ability to rootkit your system easily by sticking in a music CD, having a hole wide-open through your browser through IE by ActiveX (as what Sony's "patch" for their rootkit currently "provides"), making worms/viruses through email possible, needing hordes of ram and graphics to have a usable computer; all as a normal part of computing when it never was before.

Before Microsoft, computers that stayed running for years as the norm, worms/viruses by email/web was a hoax, and the computer hardware you used was what you needed, not to support bells and whistles and requiring graphics. Security on computers have been a mostly solved problem for decades, but Microsoft rolled everything back at least 20 years. The funny part is XP, based off NT, is based off VMS - an old OS opponent of UNIX which was one of the most secure OSs ever made.

I'm not against their unification standardization of the computers although a homogeneous gene-pool of OSs is much more subceptible to a sweeping plague as it is now (and people still like it).

You don't need ActiveX to browse the web, you don't need ActiveX to have plug-ins that auto-update, you don't need to reboot after installing a patch, but Microsoft has brainwashed people into believing it's a necessary/normal part of everyday life, that their yearly software bloat of Office and the OS (like H2s), and regular stream of security fixes is the only way to go.

Standardization isn't bad, but it's bad when Microsoft is the only standard and real standards are ignored. After beating Netscape into a pulp, Microsoft showed they only cared about the beating, and not about getting IE to keep up with the times/new web-standards, nor securing the browser or the OS, for YEARS before and after.

This is why people are jumping to Firefox.. so they can browse the web that isn't using web code adhering to ancient Microsoft-only standards with a client that has swiss-cheese security. This is why OpenOffice exists with an open document standard so governments and people aren't locked-in by Microsoft's profit-driven whims.

I use XP on my desktop, FreeBSD as my firewall (before all these cheapie Linksys boxes were made/sold), Linux for the heavy-lifting at work.

Choose your pill.