Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Windows Hate.1

I didn't see an 'opt out' of MacAfee button on this preliminary install - it just surprisingly appeared with no options. It has now been uninstalled - at least I think that it is - seemingly without incident.

Just try killing 'GoogleUpdater' or horrors of horrors 'GoogleTaskBarUpdater' in the msconfig Services Tab. Uncheck it & magically it will be back shortly. If I remember correctly from my XP install, registry editing is required & even then it is not permanent.

I don't use Google as my search engine anymore so I utilize a simple SE that doesn't track - duckduckgo. My browser is Comodo Dragon (Chrome derivative) that is mostly innocuous as well. Similarly no Win Media Player - now VLC that can easily be configured to not talk to the world. My Firewall is Comodo FW that alerts me to all of the nonsense of so many programs constantly trying to access the net. Even with all of this, I'm probably just as exposed as we all are.

None of my friends - some who are computer 'experts' - have no idea that this stuff is quietly going on almost continually. I was blissfully unaware as well until Comodo Firewall revealed all of these dirty little secrets going on in the background. It is nice as it is fully configurable to allow or deny programs access to the net.

Fred, I luv the NSA analogy, ha!

TAM

Whoops no. That was obviously not where I wanted it to go. At least it was an Axiom page vs something really odd. Not that I browse odd things. Well just the links Cam posts. <kidding>

Here is the proper link. The cube is at apx. 1:30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWRGvO_mHvI

All the distros are exceptionally boring until you start adding all the 'add-ins'. This guys desktop is probably the most tricked out I have seen.

I settled on Ubuntu cause it was the most Windows like out of the box and I didn't want to learn a new OS in depth since I rarely deal with it at work. Still, sometimes it's strangely satisfying to go old school and do stuff via the console instead of the GUI.

On second thought, I might be a little harsh in my criticism of Windows. Given the infinite number of different hardware combos & the vast amount of programmers who have their fingers in the collective pie, it's amazing that they work as well as they do. Quite amazing actually.

I guess that my main beef is with the net & the abuses by unethical companies (although they don't believe that they are unethical), individuals & organizations (governments?) by gathering & greedily storing insane amounts of data on everyone who has ever accessed the net.

For example, Google Streets is a great technology (burglars probably like it) in some ways, but when they were driving by our houses with their camera car, why were they listening for local wifi routers & jealously storing this data? The Aussie government took them to task by insisting that the data gleaned there was disposed of. Something tells me that it is still stored somewhere. For what purpose it is hard to fathom...

TAM

I've been running Windows 8 on my PC for months now. It works as good or better than Windows 7 did on it. Granted I use it just like Windows 7 (google search classic shell) and I log on it with local accounts, not a Windows Live account.