16 ms·

Microsoft's Software Is Malware

337 points by satoshiiii 4y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
Trillions of dollars are managed in Microsoft Excel which is probably the most end user empowering software ever released in the history of computing. Calling Microsoft software malware is so over the top that it turns off normal users and is only appreciated by people who are already committed to free software.
- synack 4y ago
  Useful and harmful are not mutually exclusive.
  - crownosey 4y ago
    Morally they are, not a popular point in the desert of instrumental rationality
- groestl 4y ago
  Malware is, by definition, computing that is done without its user's informed consent. There are many examples of malware that a laymen wouldn't readily classify as such. This page has a long list of examples where Microsoft's software or behavior is unethical. However, Excel is not in this list, as far as I can see. So you're right on that account.
  - IAmGraydon 4y ago
    No. Malware is, by definition, software that performs actions which have a malicious intent. Hence, the name.
    - groestl 4y ago
      A software's author can have the best of intents, it would still be malware if it's perceived to be malicious by it's users (see: state trojans, opt-out telemetry)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Requiring "user's informed consent" would make 99% of software malware for 99% of users. The majority of what software does is magic with hidden layers and data polling in the background from various sources, but that doesn't make it malware just because the user doesn't understand.
    - groestl 4y ago
      > would make 99% of software malware for 99% of users Well... Joke aside, its not like I came up with this definition.
      - sa46 4y ago
        You omitted a piece of the definition: > Malware is software that is installed on a computer without the user's consent and that performs malicious actions. https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/antivirus/malware.html#:~:text=Malware%20is%20software%20that%20is,for%20malicious%20files%20or%20programs https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/antivirus/malware.html#:~:text=....
        groestl 4y ago
        I did not. "Malicious action" is the result of violating informed consent, and as such redundant. I'm not surprised that McAfee left out "informed", btw.
    - chclt 4y ago
      99% of software IS malware for 99% of users
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Malware is, by definition, computing that is done without its user's informed consent. Do you manually inspect every CPU clock cycle spent, or every data connection or packet sent by every piece of SW running on your system, to make sure it was all done with your consent?
    - groestl 4y ago
      Trust is a different topic entirely.
    - lanstin 4y ago
      I do like to run tcpdump regularly. For a while I ran my home laptop thru an allow-listed proxy, and I was quite surprised at the results, and how little I had to allow to get what I needed done. A lot of software is phoning home. I would have thought that open source folks didn't do that, but standards or expectations have shifted. A browser that took over your DNS would have been anathema in the 90s, but now we trust the local networks even less.
- crownosey 4y ago
  [flagged]
- goosedragons 4y ago
  And it only took abusing their position to get it there! We had spreadsheets before Excel, we would have had spreadsheets without Excel. We might have had the dominant spreadsheet software on Linux and FreeBSD if not for Excel. Maybe we would have had a couple more years of Lotus 1-2-3 being clunky on Windows but frankly that seems like a fair trade.
  - burnte 4y ago
    Nah, Excel was a huge product long before Microsoft was The Dominator.
    - taylodl 4y ago
      What? Excel, like the entirety of the titles in the Office Suite, was originally developed on the Mac - where it was hardly used since the Mac wasn't targeted to business at the time. Excel was ported to Windows 2.0, but like the Mac, hardly any business was using that. In the 1980's business ran on Lotus 123, not Excel. All that changed after the release of Windows 3.0, but by that time Microsoft was already "The Dominator" as you put it. Excel 3.0 was released for Windows, Lotus took way too long to come up with a Windows release and Excel, with its GUI, had come to dominate the market. The rest is history, as they say.
      - jtotheh 4y ago
        I believe there was some skullduggery where M$ encouraged Wordperfect and Lotus, who dominated their markets, to focus on OS/2 as the future, while preparing to release or further promote Excel and Word for Windows with the release of Windows 3.0. (and possibly sabotaging the OS/2 effort). They also started the practice of bundling them up as "Office" which made Powerpoint a freebie, thus killing the market for presentation programs that had had competition at the time. I worked in an Egghead Software store while all this was going on.
        taylodl 4y ago
        I do know Microsoft lied and led everybody to believe they were completely on-board with OS/2 and were touting their codeveloping relationship with IBM. It was totally believable since Microsoft and IBM were joined at the hip with the PC and DOS. Later we found out that while Microsoft was saying one thing in industry press releases and conferences, they were preparing Windows 3.0. I've never trusted that company since, and they've never failed to meet my low expectations of them. Thing is, I remember a very different Microsoft. They used to be a great company. Then they made a deal with the devil in the 1987 timeframe and they've been evil ever since.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  [dead]
- myhf 4y ago
  Religious groups like GNU use outrageous evangelism like this to build their faith. Spreading absurd messages causes outsiders to shun members of the group, so that they can only find social/emotional support within the group.
- agiacalone 4y ago
  Shouldn't the credit go to VisiCalc instead of Excel? Excel rode on the popularity of VisiCalc and Lotus 123 for years. https://thehistoryofcomputing.net/visicalc-excel-and-the-rise-of-the-spreadsheet https://thehistoryofcomputing.net/visicalc-excel-and-the-ris...
  - alexvoda 4y ago
    And while Lotus may have declined in part due to poor strategic decisions, Microsoft is known to have engaged in anti-competitive practices against WordPerfect in the same period.
  - ThrowawayB7 4y ago
    Kind of tangential but the article talks about VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, and Excel but somehow fails to mention Microsoft's Multiplan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan) which was released the year before Lotus 1-2-3 came out. Granted, it wasn't that popular or successful, but it shows that, contrary to what some seem to think, Microsoft was contending in the spreadsheet arena long, long before Excel was even a glimmer on the horizon.
    - agiacalone 4y ago
      From the article: “They released an early spreadsheet tool called Multiple [sic] in 1982. But Lotus 1-2-3 was the first killer application for the PC.”
- Aleklart 4y ago
  Trillions minus one I guess. 200 billion SVB and 500 CS.m, 100 for SB, oh so many numbers I better open Excel to SUM them as all real executives do!
- panarky 4y ago
  "Your Honor, on the way to murder the victims, my client passed by several people who he allowed to live, therefore my client is not guilty of murder."
- anthk 4y ago
  Tell that to scientists and pharma losing billions because of Excel bugs on parsing cell items and renaming genomics.
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  It's kind of the point of a position like this. To the author, the blowback proves the correctness of their point.
segasaturn 4y ago
Is there anybody who's actually been convinced to switch to the 100% pure and ethical GNU/RMS lifestyle by these articles or is it just preaching to the choir?
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  What convinced me was their jobs are all unionized. I would love to be the director of communications for 50K a year in Boston, but hey, at least we're in a Union
- causality0 4y ago
  There's no denying the FSF has done good things, but I think more often than not they shoot themselves in the foot with their "wanting fair compensation for your work is evil" preaching. A market composed of honest users supporting honest developers, developing and selling software that focuses exclusively on the needs of the customer, would be the best possible system.
  - rzzzt 4y ago
    Selling GPL-ed software and/or providing proprietary licensed versions in exchange for money is acceptable. Straight from the, ahem, GNU's mouth: - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html
    - causality0 4y ago
      Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. This is moronic pseudo-religious doublespeak. They're saying it's acceptable to charge a fee for the one part of software creation that's effectively cost-free.
      - rzzzt 4y ago
simondanerd 4y ago
I'm all for calling out large corporations and bad actors on their misconduct, but this article seems bigoted against Microsoft and their products, and hypocritical at times. For example, (referencing the "Jails" section here), the author says, "Jails are systems that impose censorship on application programs." Not sure if I'm interpreting this next quote from the GNU.org site (https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html) correctly, but it seems like this is exactly their definition of a "Free GNU/Linux distribution" is meant to do: "They will reject nonfree applications, nonfree programming platforms, nonfree drivers, nonfree firmware "blobs," nonfree games, and any other nonfree software, as well as nonfree manuals or documentation." "They will reject" seems an awful like "won't run on my distribution", and not because it's not compatible because of runtime or kernel differences, but because of its 'being nonfree'. From Merriam & Webster: BIGOT: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices. I love free software. I don't have to pay for it, I can share, customize, and use it as I want without the author of the software ever needing to know or care, because he did it out of either love for software or because he had a need to fulfill and was nice enough to release it to the world. I also use paid software and software containing "nonfree" software blobs. I have an Android because it works for me. I use Spotify on all my devices, and pay for Premium, because I find it convenient, the same reason I use GNOME and VS Code and drive a used Chevy. I value my time and quality of life too much to be extreme "beCaUSE iT wASN't FreEEE". Just my 2 cents. I'll have that with a side of Kale please.
- extrememacaroni 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - simondanerd 4y ago
    Also true. There are some things MS Windows has better support for, especially in business and gaming.
  - segasaturn 4y ago
    I run Windows 11 on my personal laptop. Best part is it's a Framework Laptop, it's 100% compatible with Linux and has official support for Ubuntu and Fedora, and yet I choose to run Windows 11 on it. I prefer the Windows UI to the abomination that is GNOME and I'm also able to do basic things like sleep and hibernate my machine without it freaking out.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html Arch is a swing and a miss > Arch has no policy against distributing nonfree software through their normal channels, and nonfree blobs are shipped with their kernel, Linux. Debian is a no go > Debian also maintains a repository of nonfree software. According to the project, this software is “not part of the Debian system,” but the repository is hosted on many of the project's main servers, and people can readily find these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online package database and its wiki. Sorry Gentoo > Gentoo includes installation recipes for a number of nonfree programs in its primary package system. BSD > FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD all include instructions for obtaining nonfree programs in their ports system. In addition, their kernels include nonfree firmware blobs.
- ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
  I really appreciate GNU keeping their ground. We need them to keep the Overton window correctly framed. Nonfree drivers are not OK. Nonfree BIOS/EFI programs are not OK. Nonfree kernel blobs are not OK. We may use them out of necessity and pragmatism (some nonfree software is better than 100% nonfree software! an Arch user still has more intact freedoms than a Windows user), but we should still reject them ideologically and remember that they are tolerated but not accepted.
  - agiacalone 4y ago
    Same. Let the GNU fight this fight and we benefit. It's about choice.
    - lanstin 4y ago
      Even if we don't read the screeds or have to worry about it.
  - rickydroll 4y ago
    Specialized use or small audience or should be accommodated. I'm specifically thinking in terms of handicap accessibility. I need speech recognition in order to work effectively. The only good speech recognition environment for people with disabilities is Dragon on Windows. Everything else simply converts speech to text. I need something converts speech to tax then digs into text boxes and GUIs to enable editing and recognition corrections by speech. The same also applies to copilot. I've trained myself to give it prompts to generate code that matches what I would've generated by hand years ago. But without copilot, I wouldn't program. Simply not practical.
mixmastamyk 4y ago
A pretty sobering list. Some of the language is charged according to some folks, but saw no errors per se. None of it is news if you've been paying attention for a few years. I no longer need to worry about Windows, but now wondering what to do about UEFI. I've heard about things like coreboot, but doesn't seem to be offered by mainstream manufacturers. Not sure I wanna risk bricking my machine. Has there been any recent progress here?
- sakras 4y ago
  I think it's difficult on Intel to be fully free because of Intel ME. As far as I know, it's not possible to fully be rid of it, so you'll always have some proprietary blob running a possible backdoor. If you want to be fully free, you may be interested in the Raptor Talos II, which is based on OpenPOWER and has free firmware. It is pretty pricey however.
breck 4y ago
I don't think we talk enough about how U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for Microsoft's technical debt. It's shocking to spend time with Federal Workers and see how much of their days are wasted waiting for anti-virus and other bad closed source software, and then to realize we all are paying taxes to support this! Same goes for Oracle. BG and LarryE got the country to fund their yachts and stuck us with the bill. I'm gonna run for Congress under a platform of banning any Federal money from being spent on closed source, non public domain software.
- jacobsenscott 4y ago
  And that's just a fraction of the waste. The government spends millions just managing compliance with software licenses. (source - extrapolating from my experience at a 3 person Microsoft shop 15 years ago) But this isn't technical debit - this is by design.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
Even if one believes that zero Microsoft software is malware, it seems indisputable that Microsoft software is the single greatest attractant for desktop/laptop malware, from any source. (Perhaps Android is an even greater malware magnet, but not on desktops and laptops.^1) The goal is popularity and profit, not user control (cf. non-commercial options). The ideal user to Microsoft appears to be an uninformed one, not interested in control and apprently willing to reliquinsh it. Not all Microsoft users are uninformed or disinterested in control. There are profound exceptions. Some of those exceptions will read this comment and respond accordingly. But hundreds of millions of non-exceptions will remain uninformed and disinterested, to the benefit and delight of Redmond. Obviously, malware can thrive under the auspices of uninformed, oblivious users, Microsoft's ideal customers. Microsoft will purportedly protect them, when it wants to and assuming it can; of course, it won't protect them from Microsoft itself. For those Microsoft employees and users not reading, commenting and/or voting on HN, enjoy the ads injected into Windows. Microsoft is happy with the result. 1. Worth noting perhaps, Microsoft was making an estimated $2B annually from patent royalties on Android. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-billions-android-patent-royalties-141047213.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-b... (The point that commenters/voters appear to be missing is that it is the nature of the customer/user that creates the attractant for malware as much if not more than the software itself or the size of the user base. GNU regardless of what one thinks of them is AFAICT advocating for user control in this communication. That implies users who care about control, not the average Microsoft user. Users who are paying attention and who do not blindly trust companies like Microsoft. One can argue it is the "insecurity" of the software or the number of users that creates the attractant, and there is certainly some truth there, but it makes no sense if, e.g., the user base is a large number of paranoid users who read HN. They are going to avoid/prevent/detect malware better than a random sample of Microsoft users. User behaviour is relevant. If 9 out of 10 users who run program X on operating system Y are careless, then program X and/or operating system Y is arguably an excellent target for malware.)
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Most malware target Windows because it's the undisputed king of the personal computer market. Were that king Linux or Mac or BSD or god damn Haiku, they would be seeing the brunt of malware attacks instead.
charcircuit 4y ago
This is just a list of compromises where Microsoft is prioritizing something other than what this author wants. It turns out a lot of users want to have a secure system, not lose all of their files when they forget a password, can work with legacy systems, etc. Calling software malicous because it prioritized security over freedom just reads to me as being ignorant.
partiallypro 4y ago
No offense, but has this guy used Google? Because it's much worse. Microsoft is not innocent, but Google makes them look like child's play. There are 3 tech companies (in reality) that are juggernauts. Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Apple at least pretends to care about privacy (I don't believe them) Microsoft somewhat pretends (I don't believe them) and Google doesn't even pretend (I actually believe them.) Pick your poison.
- fsflover 4y ago
  Stallman doesn't use Google: https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html. > Pick your poison Alternatively, you could use a GNU/Linux on PC and phone.
- sedatk 4y ago
  Here are the same page for other companies: - Google: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html - Apple: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html
  - 1000100_1000101 4y ago
    Looked at the Apple one. Parts of it seem really childish. I can figure out iPhony is an iPhone, but I'm not certain what iBad and iMonster are supposed to reference. I could dig into the source references and try to figure out WTF they're trying to convey, but that shouldn't be necessary. Things like this hinder their credibility.
    - sedatk 4y ago
      I agree that the language used hurts the usefulness of the article. I figured out iBad could be iPad, but not sure about iMonster... Macs perhaps?
    - ubermonkey 4y ago
      That's rms for you. Regardless of context, it harms one's argument (and is blatantly disrespectful) to refer to people or groups or items with labels other than their actual names. That kind of foolishness has the same level of rhetorical value as MAGA types calling the opposition party the "Dummycrats" or whatever.
andix 4y ago
This article is a bit dramatic. If Microsoft really turns out to be a bad actor, we can switch to Linux or any alternative rather quickly.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
didgetmaster 4y ago
>Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users... The implication is that FOSS developers have no control over their users. Sure, you COULD fork your favorite tool's repository and spend many hours trying to figure out how to make it do 'what you want instead of what the developers wanted'; but very few people are really willing and/or able to do that. Nearly all software (open source or proprietary) except trivial programs, are controlled by the developers who build it and maintain it. They are given that power by the mere fact that most programs are sufficiently complex that few others can and will assume control instead. If someone does (and that someone isn't you) then the new boss is same as the old boss (to quote a line from a song by The Who).
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  Sure, you COULD fork your favorite tool's repository ... to make it do 'what you want ...’ few people are really willing and/or able to do that. Free software makes it possible for me (my business, etc) to pay someone other than the original developer to make the software do what I want. No proprietary license gets me that. In the context of personal use software by an individual it may not make sense to pay, but in the context of groups of individuals or a business it becomes viable.
- ben0x539 4y ago
  While it'd take many hours to figure out how to make some random FOSS code to do what I want if what I want is anything particularly interesting, finding out where to comment out the code that eg phones home, or makes annoying noises, and then sharing that patch with everybody else is much easier and more realistic. Sure, it doesn't entirely remove the power of the developers and particularly the people who control the official releases page, but it feels like a real, meaningful check on their power. It becomes even more meaningful if you're not just some rando but maybe the "user" in question is an org who can actually devote resources to maintain changes to some FOSS code, saving you from having to enter into some sort of partnership with the developer.
- anthk 4y ago
  With Guix making custom changes it's trivial.
gabrielsroka 4y ago
So is Apple's https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html
ubermonkey 4y ago
LOL. I read the headline, and shook my head, figuring that there was only one site where that might have been published. I was right.
moshegramovsky 4y ago
On one hand, I've been one of Microsoft's biggest fans. I've been using Windows since it first came out, then NT, then 95, then 2000, and so on. I've been using Visual Studio since 2003. They used to be my favorite products. And yet I hate what they're doing now. I turned off automatic updates, or so I thought, and returned to my machine one day last week to find it had restarted anyway. I'd spent a fair amount of preparing a commit and most of my work had vanished. Another time I returned to an unwelcome restart and I had actually lost a fair amount of work. Sure, I retyped it, but really? On the same machine, I have another account on the same machine that I use for testing. Every single time I sign in to that account, I have to start Task Manager as an administrator and then kill Windows Compatibility Telemetry, even though I have allegedly(?) disabled it several times. Otherwise it consumes so much CPU that I can't get my work done. Also, Visual Studio is a hot mess. Why do I have to wait when I drag and drop an int into the watch window? Why does my machine slow to a crawl when I'm running debug builds? Why are there so many bugs with breakpoints? A lot of the time, I have to use page up/page down to see the breakpoint appear even though I hit F9. Why is it agonizingly slow to type things when I'm debugging? Why do I fantasize about finding a new job that doesn't require me to use Visual Studio? Visual Studio has become my least favorite piece of software. There are days when I just write code in Notepad++ and only use Visual Studio to build. It's frustrating. The seeming inability to exert developer-level control over Windows makes me feel like my devices aren't mine. For fuck's sake, I had to tell Windows that my internet connection was metered in order to get them to stop with the updates. Yes, the article might be hyperbolic, but the whole jail argument is starting to line up pretty well with reality. Dear Microsoft, please stop fucking with everything.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  If you are writing C or C++, is JetBrains' CLion an option? If you are writing C#, is JetBrains' Rider an option?
  - codalan 4y ago
    Rider is pretty good. I haven't fully switched over yet, just because the rest of my team uses VS2019/VS2022.
musicale 4y ago
Sure, but it also provides a good deal of inspiration for free and open source software. And it's good enough for many purposes.
brightball 4y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34911811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34911811
gerdesj 4y ago
I've been doing IT for quite a while now. About 25ish years ago a bloke called Ben Greer sent me some patches to get 802.1Q VLANs running on Linux which sorted a snag for me on a rather large network with no Windows domain and a lot of workgroups. I whipped up a lot of Samba daemons - one per network per workgroup and combined their browse lists. There was something like 100 of them running on an old Compaq cream coloured tower thing. A few weeks ago I filed a couple of bugs a few days before buggering off on hols. Both were fixed within a couple of days. One was for a pretty esoteric snag on Arch Linux relating to Python, Kerberos and WinRM. Ansible now works again. I can't remember what the other one was but it was to do with Graylog - again fixed with alacrity. I've done time on the Gentoo and Arch and many other forums and sometimes actually fixed stuff 8) and of course had stuff fixed for me. I have also been called a wanker and may have had some fairly heated discussions - that is the way of the internet. I have also apologised for being a knobend a few times and that gets a good response. My experience with Windows is not the same as my Linux experience and I started off with Windows 2. OK I actually started off with a ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum and I still have a C-64 (with USB nowadays). When you search for a Linux snag these days you get an awful lot of blogs that are at least nicely formatted copies of canonical sources. I use uBlacklist to get rid of the worst. Search for a Windows snag and you generally fall into a whole world of hurt. sfc /scannow or reinstall your OS is a common answer. I'll drop here that sfc has never fixed a snag for me (I worry about roughly thousands of Windows boxes) but someone a third my age will still insist it is the dog's nadgers. Windows isn't malware, it's just lost the plot. There is a lot to love still in there somewhere but the copy n paste icons are an absolute aberration and W11 is just plain odd in places. You cannot use telemetry to work out what is going on in someone's mind. My wife uses Arch Linux with KDE as a WM and has no idea what that even means. I divorced her from Windows at Win7 and never looked back.
- dizhn 4y ago
  Great comment. Between sfc /scannow and a format you can also try to revert to an earlier snapshot. Don't forget the ever so optimistic Windows Troubleshooter. I think I've seen it fix a network issue once by restarting the interface. :)
  - 4y ago
sacnoradhq 4y ago
Oh lord: the newspeak conflating "malware" of "they don't give me all of the source and all of their tools" with "ransomware encrypted all pictures of deceased grandma". I don't have a horse in this cockfight between religions because there are strengths and suck in each. Windows annoys me because of prevalent active app stuttering and lag that has never been resolved with more soft-realtime IO and context schedulers to what the user is focused on. Debugging tools have somewhat improved but you have to be a nuclear engineer to locate what is impacting performance.
_8j50 4y ago
Ugh.. not this again. It can't be malware if there is no malicious intent behind it. Not greed, not carelessness, not incompetence not apathy but malice, as in MS must desire to cause harm to its users. Let's tally up every RCE in GNU software and call it a backdoor if we're misrepresenting other's intentions. Shame on GNU, the quality of the foundation's work speaks for itself without this drivel.
bigboy12 4y ago
Why would ANYONE use windows. 40 years of bs crap. Why can’t they just keep windows classic with all the legacy code and build a new light system with no legacy? Has ms had any innovation ever!!!
paletteOvO 4y ago
Sadly there is no other better option. Most foss don't user friendly enough and Apple just aims to against humanity.
- ChatGTP 4y ago
  Been using Linux for 20 years, yes there are some things I can't do, but it's more than enough for most of my use cases.
potsandpans 4y ago
always has been
favorited 4y ago
> malware (designed to mistreat the user) Anything can be "malware" if you get to make up your own definition for the word. I've checked the normal places for definitions of malware, and none of them are as broad and simplistic as this.
deafpolygon 4y ago
What an interesting comment thread. One of the more interesting additions to the article linked in the OP refers to this site: https://www.techspot.com/news/97535-windows-11-spyware-machine-out-users-control.html https://www.techspot.com/news/97535-windows-11-spyware-machi... - I'm not sure if I would consider techspot is good journaling. That's all I'll say about that. > Microsoft is imposing its surveillance on the game of Minecraft by requiring every player to open an account on Microsoft's network. It's ok when it was Mojang, but it's "surveillance" when Microsoft does it? I mean - Mojang required a login account for the longest time, also. I considered it a good approach simplifying accounts so people can play together across iOS and PC. Anyways... onto commenting the comments below; I see people complaining about Office being slow, and taking very long to load. Office apps are one of the fastest applications on my system, often taking a second to load. Yes, Excel loads in a ~second. It's so fast, that it puts LibreOffice to shame taking at least 30 seconds to load for me. And Excel is one damn polished of software. I wouldn't trade it for Calc, or Apple's Numbers. VS being a terrible dev environment; yet I don't see anyone suggesting something better. It takes 15 seconds to load cold and is pretty quick to load after. Doing dev in Notepad++ and then building in VS afterwards is just.. what? > Free software makes it possible for me (my business, etc) to pay someone other than the original developer to make the software do what I want. No proprietary license gets me that. Why not pay the original developers if they're doing such a good job? > Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users Yet most users cannot modify software because they do not have the technical know-how. The developers are still in control, and even if you are an experienced developer yourself - there's a good chance you aren't familiar or comfortable enough with the target language to make such changes yourself. I do acknowledge that FOSS has an important place in our society and our future. I've been a UNIX/Linux sysadmin for a very long time, yet treating it as something of a religion and taking a "cult-like" approach isn't really the best way to make progress. GNU is being held back by this, because there is tons and tons of non-free software built by sole developers who don't want their work and time stolen from them (which the GPL purports to prevent- but this is not true in practice). Yet by the FSF definitions, that makes sole developers evil- and pushes many of them away from the free software platform. Re; forced software updates... Anyways, forced software updates is the results of years and years of people not wanting to update their software through their own obstinance, getting viruses and malware as a result and blaming Microsoft and leaving them on the hook for damages. Yes, you can disable the updates with Windows Server - I have NO IDEA how some of you guys are complaining about that. I'm only a middling Linux admin but even I know how to manage Windows boxes at a basic level. > A lot of malware comes from piracy, not from vulns. My sweet summer child. A lot of malware and/or viruses do not come from piracy. They come from people who click random web links and/or e-mail and run software that pops up on there. While piracy obviously exists and the web has made it much easier to do so, the vast majority of malware and viruses come from "stupid" users that don't understand what it is they're doing. Anyways, that's all the energy I have for today. I'm not under any illusion about Microsoft either but being evangelistic about this matter isn't going to help anyone.
patientplatypus 4y ago
[dead]
t0bia_s 4y ago
So what is a solution if you need this malware to host another malware from Adobe for work?
red-iron-pine 4y ago
The article doesn't have a specific author listed. Is it safe to assume RMS?
psyclobe 4y ago
Try as you might no setting you set in windows seems to stick anymore, that or they actively try to get you to reset it. I have seemingly un-installed so many stub apps, disabled onedrive countless times, mucked with group policy etc. etc. etc. You can't modify the system enough, it's not designed to be modified, its too complicated to be tested in any state but their defaults. I've finally fully embraced Linux. Microsoft made it happen.

337 points by satoshiiii 4y ago

Trillions of dollars are managed in Microsoft Excel which is probably the most end user empowering software ever released in the history of computing. Calling Microsoft software malware is so over the top that it turns off normal users and is only appreciated by people who are already committed to free software.

synack 4y ago
Useful and harmful are not mutually exclusive.
- crownosey 4y ago
  Morally they are, not a popular point in the desert of instrumental rationality
groestl 4y ago
Malware is, by definition, computing that is done without its user's informed consent. There are many examples of malware that a laymen wouldn't readily classify as such. This page has a long list of examples where Microsoft's software or behavior is unethical. However, Excel is not in this list, as far as I can see. So you're right on that account.
- IAmGraydon 4y ago
  No. Malware is, by definition, software that performs actions which have a malicious intent. Hence, the name.
  - groestl 4y ago
    A software's author can have the best of intents, it would still be malware if it's perceived to be malicious by it's users (see: state trojans, opt-out telemetry)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  Requiring "user's informed consent" would make 99% of software malware for 99% of users. The majority of what software does is magic with hidden layers and data polling in the background from various sources, but that doesn't make it malware just because the user doesn't understand.
  - groestl 4y ago
    > would make 99% of software malware for 99% of users Well... Joke aside, its not like I came up with this definition.
    - sa46 4y ago
      You omitted a piece of the definition: > Malware is software that is installed on a computer without the user's consent and that performs malicious actions. https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/antivirus/malware.html#:~:text=Malware%20is%20software%20that%20is,for%20malicious%20files%20or%20programs https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/antivirus/malware.html#:~:text=....
      - groestl 4y ago
        I did not. "Malicious action" is the result of violating informed consent, and as such redundant. I'm not surprised that McAfee left out "informed", btw.
  - chclt 4y ago
    99% of software IS malware for 99% of users
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Malware is, by definition, computing that is done without its user's informed consent. Do you manually inspect every CPU clock cycle spent, or every data connection or packet sent by every piece of SW running on your system, to make sure it was all done with your consent?
  - groestl 4y ago
    Trust is a different topic entirely.
  - lanstin 4y ago
    I do like to run tcpdump regularly. For a while I ran my home laptop thru an allow-listed proxy, and I was quite surprised at the results, and how little I had to allow to get what I needed done. A lot of software is phoning home. I would have thought that open source folks didn't do that, but standards or expectations have shifted. A browser that took over your DNS would have been anathema in the 90s, but now we trust the local networks even less.
crownosey 4y ago
[flagged]
goosedragons 4y ago
And it only took abusing their position to get it there! We had spreadsheets before Excel, we would have had spreadsheets without Excel. We might have had the dominant spreadsheet software on Linux and FreeBSD if not for Excel. Maybe we would have had a couple more years of Lotus 1-2-3 being clunky on Windows but frankly that seems like a fair trade.
- burnte 4y ago
  Nah, Excel was a huge product long before Microsoft was The Dominator.
  - taylodl 4y ago
    What? Excel, like the entirety of the titles in the Office Suite, was originally developed on the Mac - where it was hardly used since the Mac wasn't targeted to business at the time. Excel was ported to Windows 2.0, but like the Mac, hardly any business was using that. In the 1980's business ran on Lotus 123, not Excel. All that changed after the release of Windows 3.0, but by that time Microsoft was already "The Dominator" as you put it. Excel 3.0 was released for Windows, Lotus took way too long to come up with a Windows release and Excel, with its GUI, had come to dominate the market. The rest is history, as they say.
    - jtotheh 4y ago
      I believe there was some skullduggery where M$ encouraged Wordperfect and Lotus, who dominated their markets, to focus on OS/2 as the future, while preparing to release or further promote Excel and Word for Windows with the release of Windows 3.0. (and possibly sabotaging the OS/2 effort). They also started the practice of bundling them up as "Office" which made Powerpoint a freebie, thus killing the market for presentation programs that had had competition at the time. I worked in an Egghead Software store while all this was going on.
      - taylodl 4y ago
        I do know Microsoft lied and led everybody to believe they were completely on-board with OS/2 and were touting their codeveloping relationship with IBM. It was totally believable since Microsoft and IBM were joined at the hip with the PC and DOS. Later we found out that while Microsoft was saying one thing in industry press releases and conferences, they were preparing Windows 3.0. I've never trusted that company since, and they've never failed to meet my low expectations of them. Thing is, I remember a very different Microsoft. They used to be a great company. Then they made a deal with the devil in the 1987 timeframe and they've been evil ever since.
encryptluks2 4y ago
[dead]
myhf 4y ago
Religious groups like GNU use outrageous evangelism like this to build their faith. Spreading absurd messages causes outsiders to shun members of the group, so that they can only find social/emotional support within the group.
agiacalone 4y ago
Shouldn't the credit go to VisiCalc instead of Excel? Excel rode on the popularity of VisiCalc and Lotus 123 for years. https://thehistoryofcomputing.net/visicalc-excel-and-the-rise-of-the-spreadsheet https://thehistoryofcomputing.net/visicalc-excel-and-the-ris...
- alexvoda 4y ago
  And while Lotus may have declined in part due to poor strategic decisions, Microsoft is known to have engaged in anti-competitive practices against WordPerfect in the same period.
- ThrowawayB7 4y ago
  Kind of tangential but the article talks about VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, and Excel but somehow fails to mention Microsoft's Multiplan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan) which was released the year before Lotus 1-2-3 came out. Granted, it wasn't that popular or successful, but it shows that, contrary to what some seem to think, Microsoft was contending in the spreadsheet arena long, long before Excel was even a glimmer on the horizon.
  - agiacalone 4y ago
    From the article: “They released an early spreadsheet tool called Multiple [sic] in 1982. But Lotus 1-2-3 was the first killer application for the PC.”
Aleklart 4y ago
Trillions minus one I guess. 200 billion SVB and 500 CS.m, 100 for SB, oh so many numbers I better open Excel to SUM them as all real executives do!
panarky 4y ago
"Your Honor, on the way to murder the victims, my client passed by several people who he allowed to live, therefore my client is not guilty of murder."
anthk 4y ago
Tell that to scientists and pharma losing billions because of Excel bugs on parsing cell items and renaming genomics.
ubermonkey 4y ago
It's kind of the point of a position like this. To the author, the blowback proves the correctness of their point.

segasaturn 4y ago

Is there anybody who's actually been convinced to switch to the 100% pure and ethical GNU/RMS lifestyle by these articles or is it just preaching to the choir?

calvinmorrison 4y ago
What convinced me was their jobs are all unionized. I would love to be the director of communications for 50K a year in Boston, but hey, at least we're in a Union
causality0 4y ago
There's no denying the FSF has done good things, but I think more often than not they shoot themselves in the foot with their "wanting fair compensation for your work is evil" preaching. A market composed of honest users supporting honest developers, developing and selling software that focuses exclusively on the needs of the customer, would be the best possible system.
- rzzzt 4y ago
  Selling GPL-ed software and/or providing proprietary licensed versions in exchange for money is acceptable. Straight from the, ahem, GNU's mouth: - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html
  - causality0 4y ago
    Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. This is moronic pseudo-religious doublespeak. They're saying it's acceptable to charge a fee for the one part of software creation that's effectively cost-free.
    - rzzzt 4y ago

simondanerd 4y ago

I'm all for calling out large corporations and bad actors on their misconduct, but this article seems bigoted against Microsoft and their products, and hypocritical at times. For example, (referencing the "Jails" section here), the author says, "Jails are systems that impose censorship on application programs." Not sure if I'm interpreting this next quote from the GNU.org site (https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html) correctly, but it seems like this is exactly their definition of a "Free GNU/Linux distribution" is meant to do: "They will reject nonfree applications, nonfree programming platforms, nonfree drivers, nonfree firmware "blobs," nonfree games, and any other nonfree software, as well as nonfree manuals or documentation." "They will reject" seems an awful like "won't run on my distribution", and not because it's not compatible because of runtime or kernel differences, but because of its 'being nonfree'. From Merriam & Webster: BIGOT: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices. I love free software. I don't have to pay for it, I can share, customize, and use it as I want without the author of the software ever needing to know or care, because he did it out of either love for software or because he had a need to fulfill and was nice enough to release it to the world. I also use paid software and software containing "nonfree" software blobs. I have an Android because it works for me. I use Spotify on all my devices, and pay for Premium, because I find it convenient, the same reason I use GNOME and VS Code and drive a used Chevy. I value my time and quality of life too much to be extreme "beCaUSE iT wASN't FreEEE". Just my 2 cents. I'll have that with a side of Kale please.

extrememacaroni 4y ago
[flagged]
- simondanerd 4y ago
  Also true. There are some things MS Windows has better support for, especially in business and gaming.
- segasaturn 4y ago
  I run Windows 11 on my personal laptop. Best part is it's a Framework Laptop, it's 100% compatible with Linux and has official support for Ubuntu and Fedora, and yet I choose to run Windows 11 on it. I prefer the Windows UI to the abomination that is GNOME and I'm also able to do basic things like sleep and hibernate my machine without it freaking out.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html https://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.en.html Arch is a swing and a miss > Arch has no policy against distributing nonfree software through their normal channels, and nonfree blobs are shipped with their kernel, Linux. Debian is a no go > Debian also maintains a repository of nonfree software. According to the project, this software is “not part of the Debian system,” but the repository is hosted on many of the project's main servers, and people can readily find these nonfree packages by browsing Debian's online package database and its wiki. Sorry Gentoo > Gentoo includes installation recipes for a number of nonfree programs in its primary package system. BSD > FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD all include instructions for obtaining nonfree programs in their ports system. In addition, their kernels include nonfree firmware blobs.

ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
I really appreciate GNU keeping their ground. We need them to keep the Overton window correctly framed. Nonfree drivers are not OK. Nonfree BIOS/EFI programs are not OK. Nonfree kernel blobs are not OK. We may use them out of necessity and pragmatism (some nonfree software is better than 100% nonfree software! an Arch user still has more intact freedoms than a Windows user), but we should still reject them ideologically and remember that they are tolerated but not accepted.
- agiacalone 4y ago
  Same. Let the GNU fight this fight and we benefit. It's about choice.
  - lanstin 4y ago
    Even if we don't read the screeds or have to worry about it.
- rickydroll 4y ago
  Specialized use or small audience or should be accommodated. I'm specifically thinking in terms of handicap accessibility. I need speech recognition in order to work effectively. The only good speech recognition environment for people with disabilities is Dragon on Windows. Everything else simply converts speech to text. I need something converts speech to tax then digs into text boxes and GUIs to enable editing and recognition corrections by speech. The same also applies to copilot. I've trained myself to give it prompts to generate code that matches what I would've generated by hand years ago. But without copilot, I wouldn't program. Simply not practical.

mixmastamyk 4y ago

A pretty sobering list. Some of the language is charged according to some folks, but saw no errors per se. None of it is news if you've been paying attention for a few years. I no longer need to worry about Windows, but now wondering what to do about UEFI. I've heard about things like coreboot, but doesn't seem to be offered by mainstream manufacturers. Not sure I wanna risk bricking my machine. Has there been any recent progress here?

sakras 4y ago
I think it's difficult on Intel to be fully free because of Intel ME. As far as I know, it's not possible to fully be rid of it, so you'll always have some proprietary blob running a possible backdoor. If you want to be fully free, you may be interested in the Raptor Talos II, which is based on OpenPOWER and has free firmware. It is pretty pricey however.

breck 4y ago

I don't think we talk enough about how U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for Microsoft's technical debt. It's shocking to spend time with Federal Workers and see how much of their days are wasted waiting for anti-virus and other bad closed source software, and then to realize we all are paying taxes to support this! Same goes for Oracle. BG and LarryE got the country to fund their yachts and stuck us with the bill. I'm gonna run for Congress under a platform of banning any Federal money from being spent on closed source, non public domain software.

jacobsenscott 4y ago
And that's just a fraction of the waste. The government spends millions just managing compliance with software licenses. (source - extrapolating from my experience at a 3 person Microsoft shop 15 years ago) But this isn't technical debit - this is by design.

1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago

Even if one believes that zero Microsoft software is malware, it seems indisputable that Microsoft software is the single greatest attractant for desktop/laptop malware, from any source. (Perhaps Android is an even greater malware magnet, but not on desktops and laptops.^1) The goal is popularity and profit, not user control (cf. non-commercial options). The ideal user to Microsoft appears to be an uninformed one, not interested in control and apprently willing to reliquinsh it. Not all Microsoft users are uninformed or disinterested in control. There are profound exceptions. Some of those exceptions will read this comment and respond accordingly. But hundreds of millions of non-exceptions will remain uninformed and disinterested, to the benefit and delight of Redmond. Obviously, malware can thrive under the auspices of uninformed, oblivious users, Microsoft's ideal customers. Microsoft will purportedly protect them, when it wants to and assuming it can; of course, it won't protect them from Microsoft itself. For those Microsoft employees and users not reading, commenting and/or voting on HN, enjoy the ads injected into Windows. Microsoft is happy with the result. 1. Worth noting perhaps, Microsoft was making an estimated $2B annually from patent royalties on Android. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-billions-android-patent-royalties-141047213.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-may-relinquishing-b... (The point that commenters/voters appear to be missing is that it is the nature of the customer/user that creates the attractant for malware as much if not more than the software itself or the size of the user base. GNU regardless of what one thinks of them is AFAICT advocating for user control in this communication. That implies users who care about control, not the average Microsoft user. Users who are paying attention and who do not blindly trust companies like Microsoft. One can argue it is the "insecurity" of the software or the number of users that creates the attractant, and there is certainly some truth there, but it makes no sense if, e.g., the user base is a large number of paranoid users who read HN. They are going to avoid/prevent/detect malware better than a random sample of Microsoft users. User behaviour is relevant. If 9 out of 10 users who run program X on operating system Y are careless, then program X and/or operating system Y is arguably an excellent target for malware.)

Dalewyn 4y ago
Most malware target Windows because it's the undisputed king of the personal computer market. Were that king Linux or Mac or BSD or god damn Haiku, they would be seeing the brunt of malware attacks instead.

charcircuit 4y ago

This is just a list of compromises where Microsoft is prioritizing something other than what this author wants. It turns out a lot of users want to have a secure system, not lose all of their files when they forget a password, can work with legacy systems, etc. Calling software malicous because it prioritized security over freedom just reads to me as being ignorant.

partiallypro 4y ago

No offense, but has this guy used Google? Because it's much worse. Microsoft is not innocent, but Google makes them look like child's play. There are 3 tech companies (in reality) that are juggernauts. Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Apple at least pretends to care about privacy (I don't believe them) Microsoft somewhat pretends (I don't believe them) and Google doesn't even pretend (I actually believe them.) Pick your poison.

fsflover 4y ago
Stallman doesn't use Google: https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html. > Pick your poison Alternatively, you could use a GNU/Linux on PC and phone.
sedatk 4y ago
Here are the same page for other companies: - Google: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-google.html - Apple: https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html
- 1000100_1000101 4y ago
  Looked at the Apple one. Parts of it seem really childish. I can figure out iPhony is an iPhone, but I'm not certain what iBad and iMonster are supposed to reference. I could dig into the source references and try to figure out WTF they're trying to convey, but that shouldn't be necessary. Things like this hinder their credibility.
  - sedatk 4y ago
    I agree that the language used hurts the usefulness of the article. I figured out iBad could be iPad, but not sure about iMonster... Macs perhaps?
  - ubermonkey 4y ago
    That's rms for you. Regardless of context, it harms one's argument (and is blatantly disrespectful) to refer to people or groups or items with labels other than their actual names. That kind of foolishness has the same level of rhetorical value as MAGA types calling the opposition party the "Dummycrats" or whatever.

andix 4y ago

This article is a bit dramatic. If Microsoft really turns out to be a bad actor, we can switch to Linux or any alternative rather quickly.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

didgetmaster 4y ago

>Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users... The implication is that FOSS developers have no control over their users. Sure, you COULD fork your favorite tool's repository and spend many hours trying to figure out how to make it do 'what you want instead of what the developers wanted'; but very few people are really willing and/or able to do that. Nearly all software (open source or proprietary) except trivial programs, are controlled by the developers who build it and maintain it. They are given that power by the mere fact that most programs are sufficiently complex that few others can and will assume control instead. If someone does (and that someone isn't you) then the new boss is same as the old boss (to quote a line from a song by The Who).

EvanAnderson 4y ago
Sure, you COULD fork your favorite tool's repository ... to make it do 'what you want ...’ few people are really willing and/or able to do that. Free software makes it possible for me (my business, etc) to pay someone other than the original developer to make the software do what I want. No proprietary license gets me that. In the context of personal use software by an individual it may not make sense to pay, but in the context of groups of individuals or a business it becomes viable.
ben0x539 4y ago
While it'd take many hours to figure out how to make some random FOSS code to do what I want if what I want is anything particularly interesting, finding out where to comment out the code that eg phones home, or makes annoying noises, and then sharing that patch with everybody else is much easier and more realistic. Sure, it doesn't entirely remove the power of the developers and particularly the people who control the official releases page, but it feels like a real, meaningful check on their power. It becomes even more meaningful if you're not just some rando but maybe the "user" in question is an org who can actually devote resources to maintain changes to some FOSS code, saving you from having to enter into some sort of partnership with the developer.
anthk 4y ago
With Guix making custom changes it's trivial.

gabrielsroka 4y ago

So is Apple's https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-apple.html

ubermonkey 4y ago

LOL. I read the headline, and shook my head, figuring that there was only one site where that might have been published. I was right.

moshegramovsky 4y ago

On one hand, I've been one of Microsoft's biggest fans. I've been using Windows since it first came out, then NT, then 95, then 2000, and so on. I've been using Visual Studio since 2003. They used to be my favorite products. And yet I hate what they're doing now. I turned off automatic updates, or so I thought, and returned to my machine one day last week to find it had restarted anyway. I'd spent a fair amount of preparing a commit and most of my work had vanished. Another time I returned to an unwelcome restart and I had actually lost a fair amount of work. Sure, I retyped it, but really? On the same machine, I have another account on the same machine that I use for testing. Every single time I sign in to that account, I have to start Task Manager as an administrator and then kill Windows Compatibility Telemetry, even though I have allegedly(?) disabled it several times. Otherwise it consumes so much CPU that I can't get my work done. Also, Visual Studio is a hot mess. Why do I have to wait when I drag and drop an int into the watch window? Why does my machine slow to a crawl when I'm running debug builds? Why are there so many bugs with breakpoints? A lot of the time, I have to use page up/page down to see the breakpoint appear even though I hit F9. Why is it agonizingly slow to type things when I'm debugging? Why do I fantasize about finding a new job that doesn't require me to use Visual Studio? Visual Studio has become my least favorite piece of software. There are days when I just write code in Notepad++ and only use Visual Studio to build. It's frustrating. The seeming inability to exert developer-level control over Windows makes me feel like my devices aren't mine. For fuck's sake, I had to tell Windows that my internet connection was metered in order to get them to stop with the updates. Yes, the article might be hyperbolic, but the whole jail argument is starting to line up pretty well with reality. Dear Microsoft, please stop fucking with everything.

throwaway2037 4y ago
If you are writing C or C++, is JetBrains' CLion an option? If you are writing C#, is JetBrains' Rider an option?
- codalan 4y ago
  Rider is pretty good. I haven't fully switched over yet, just because the rest of my team uses VS2019/VS2022.

musicale 4y ago

Sure, but it also provides a good deal of inspiration for free and open source software. And it's good enough for many purposes.

brightball 4y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34911811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34911811

gerdesj 4y ago

I've been doing IT for quite a while now. About 25ish years ago a bloke called Ben Greer sent me some patches to get 802.1Q VLANs running on Linux which sorted a snag for me on a rather large network with no Windows domain and a lot of workgroups. I whipped up a lot of Samba daemons - one per network per workgroup and combined their browse lists. There was something like 100 of them running on an old Compaq cream coloured tower thing. A few weeks ago I filed a couple of bugs a few days before buggering off on hols. Both were fixed within a couple of days. One was for a pretty esoteric snag on Arch Linux relating to Python, Kerberos and WinRM. Ansible now works again. I can't remember what the other one was but it was to do with Graylog - again fixed with alacrity. I've done time on the Gentoo and Arch and many other forums and sometimes actually fixed stuff 8) and of course had stuff fixed for me. I have also been called a wanker and may have had some fairly heated discussions - that is the way of the internet. I have also apologised for being a knobend a few times and that gets a good response. My experience with Windows is not the same as my Linux experience and I started off with Windows 2. OK I actually started off with a ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum and I still have a C-64 (with USB nowadays). When you search for a Linux snag these days you get an awful lot of blogs that are at least nicely formatted copies of canonical sources. I use uBlacklist to get rid of the worst. Search for a Windows snag and you generally fall into a whole world of hurt. sfc /scannow or reinstall your OS is a common answer. I'll drop here that sfc has never fixed a snag for me (I worry about roughly thousands of Windows boxes) but someone a third my age will still insist it is the dog's nadgers. Windows isn't malware, it's just lost the plot. There is a lot to love still in there somewhere but the copy n paste icons are an absolute aberration and W11 is just plain odd in places. You cannot use telemetry to work out what is going on in someone's mind. My wife uses Arch Linux with KDE as a WM and has no idea what that even means. I divorced her from Windows at Win7 and never looked back.

dizhn 4y ago
Great comment. Between sfc /scannow and a format you can also try to revert to an earlier snapshot. Don't forget the ever so optimistic Windows Troubleshooter. I think I've seen it fix a network issue once by restarting the interface. :)
- 4y ago

sacnoradhq 4y ago

Oh lord: the newspeak conflating "malware" of "they don't give me all of the source and all of their tools" with "ransomware encrypted all pictures of deceased grandma". I don't have a horse in this cockfight between religions because there are strengths and suck in each. Windows annoys me because of prevalent active app stuttering and lag that has never been resolved with more soft-realtime IO and context schedulers to what the user is focused on. Debugging tools have somewhat improved but you have to be a nuclear engineer to locate what is impacting performance.

_8j50 4y ago

Ugh.. not this again. It can't be malware if there is no malicious intent behind it. Not greed, not carelessness, not incompetence not apathy but malice, as in MS must desire to cause harm to its users. Let's tally up every RCE in GNU software and call it a backdoor if we're misrepresenting other's intentions. Shame on GNU, the quality of the foundation's work speaks for itself without this drivel.

bigboy12 4y ago

Why would ANYONE use windows. 40 years of bs crap. Why can’t they just keep windows classic with all the legacy code and build a new light system with no legacy? Has ms had any innovation ever!!!

paletteOvO 4y ago

Sadly there is no other better option. Most foss don't user friendly enough and Apple just aims to against humanity.

ChatGTP 4y ago
Been using Linux for 20 years, yes there are some things I can't do, but it's more than enough for most of my use cases.

potsandpans 4y ago

always has been

favorited 4y ago

> malware (designed to mistreat the user) Anything can be "malware" if you get to make up your own definition for the word. I've checked the normal places for definitions of malware, and none of them are as broad and simplistic as this.

deafpolygon 4y ago

What an interesting comment thread. One of the more interesting additions to the article linked in the OP refers to this site: https://www.techspot.com/news/97535-windows-11-spyware-machine-out-users-control.html https://www.techspot.com/news/97535-windows-11-spyware-machi... - I'm not sure if I would consider techspot is good journaling. That's all I'll say about that. > Microsoft is imposing its surveillance on the game of Minecraft by requiring every player to open an account on Microsoft's network. It's ok when it was Mojang, but it's "surveillance" when Microsoft does it? I mean - Mojang required a login account for the longest time, also. I considered it a good approach simplifying accounts so people can play together across iOS and PC. Anyways... onto commenting the comments below; I see people complaining about Office being slow, and taking very long to load. Office apps are one of the fastest applications on my system, often taking a second to load. Yes, Excel loads in a ~second. It's so fast, that it puts LibreOffice to shame taking at least 30 seconds to load for me. And Excel is one damn polished of software. I wouldn't trade it for Calc, or Apple's Numbers. VS being a terrible dev environment; yet I don't see anyone suggesting something better. It takes 15 seconds to load cold and is pretty quick to load after. Doing dev in Notepad++ and then building in VS afterwards is just.. what? > Free software makes it possible for me (my business, etc) to pay someone other than the original developer to make the software do what I want. No proprietary license gets me that. Why not pay the original developers if they're doing such a good job? > Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users Yet most users cannot modify software because they do not have the technical know-how. The developers are still in control, and even if you are an experienced developer yourself - there's a good chance you aren't familiar or comfortable enough with the target language to make such changes yourself. I do acknowledge that FOSS has an important place in our society and our future. I've been a UNIX/Linux sysadmin for a very long time, yet treating it as something of a religion and taking a "cult-like" approach isn't really the best way to make progress. GNU is being held back by this, because there is tons and tons of non-free software built by sole developers who don't want their work and time stolen from them (which the GPL purports to prevent- but this is not true in practice). Yet by the FSF definitions, that makes sole developers evil- and pushes many of them away from the free software platform. Re; forced software updates... Anyways, forced software updates is the results of years and years of people not wanting to update their software through their own obstinance, getting viruses and malware as a result and blaming Microsoft and leaving them on the hook for damages. Yes, you can disable the updates with Windows Server - I have NO IDEA how some of you guys are complaining about that. I'm only a middling Linux admin but even I know how to manage Windows boxes at a basic level. > A lot of malware comes from piracy, not from vulns. My sweet summer child. A lot of malware and/or viruses do not come from piracy. They come from people who click random web links and/or e-mail and run software that pops up on there. While piracy obviously exists and the web has made it much easier to do so, the vast majority of malware and viruses come from "stupid" users that don't understand what it is they're doing. Anyways, that's all the energy I have for today. I'm not under any illusion about Microsoft either but being evangelistic about this matter isn't going to help anyone.

patientplatypus 4y ago

[dead]

t0bia_s 4y ago

So what is a solution if you need this malware to host another malware from Adobe for work?

red-iron-pine 4y ago

The article doesn't have a specific author listed. Is it safe to assume RMS?

psyclobe 4y ago

Try as you might no setting you set in windows seems to stick anymore, that or they actively try to get you to reset it. I have seemingly un-installed so many stub apps, disabled onedrive countless times, mucked with group policy etc. etc. etc. You can't modify the system enough, it's not designed to be modified, its too complicated to be tested in any state but their defaults. I've finally fully embraced Linux. Microsoft made it happen.