shadowrelm wrote:
windows 98 doesnt download all the information on your computer to microsoft for "analitical research" , read marketing research.
windows xp does.
No. But windows98 is so rife with security holes that any data you have on it will be accessable to any idiot who can write a simple script and hack your system. Not really an improvement.
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service pack2? ROFL, it closed a back door microsoft put in the operating system to do just that, get into your computer. they had to close it when someone found it and started plastering it all over the web. you can bet service pack 2 just closed that one and opened another.
Tin foil hat much? Don't get me wrong, Window's is basically one big security flaw from the ground up and is an example of how not to do most things (although their CIFS stuff isn't bad from a file server perspective). The solution is to never put anything you don't want taken on your computer.
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how old are you? how many computers do you have? what type of programs do you use most? whats the average balance in your checking account? are you male or female? where do you live?
want to know? anyone with xp has already given it to microsoft, they could tel you.
Lol. Unless you filled out some registration thingie and actually put your name and address down, they can't get that information. And unless you're stupid and keep unencrypted financial data on your system, they can't get that either. And anyone with a network sniffer can tell how many computers you have (unless you're a decent network admin of course!). Don't need MS to do that. Male or female? I'd love to hear how my computer knows that bit of information...
Running Windows98 in order to avoid the evil data mining that MW may or may not be doing is just plain stupid. It's like insisting on driving an old car because that way the evil car companies wont require you to drive a car with airbags.
If you really don't want MS to know what you're doing, run a different OS instead. And not an older MS OS. Load up linux on your system. Run your financial programs off that one. Do your web browsing there. I use my XP system for one thing and one thing only: I play games on it. Period. And if some evil virus comes along and wipes it out? Who cares? I reinstall. And if some evil MS program comes along and reads my hard drive? Well, they'll find out that I play a handful of games. Not exactly concerned about that...
Pssst. And just for the record? MS doesn't actually do any of that stuff. Because there's a whole world full of IT experts who do nothing but log and check and verify what MS does. If they actually did grab personal data off your hard drive (more then what you give them when you register), it would be much more widely known then in the rants of someone totally unfamiliar with the IT world on a gaming site. While MS is typicall rife with security holes and exploits that can be used to read data off your system, there's no evidence that MS itself steals such data. And it's not like that would be hard to check...
Edited, Jun 7th 2006 at 9:28pm EST by gbaji