"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
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[...]
Finally, MS has decided to listen and will have the firewall on by
default in Service Pack 2.

Yes, they have. And it will cost them a lot of money, because now every
user that winds up wanting to do something that the firewall won't allow by
default (because it locks down the system by default) will cost Microsoft
money so that they can have their questions answered because they can't be
bothered to RTFM.

Online gaming will be a big area of support, but there are plenty of other
applications that look like end-user client applications but which wind up
hosting at least one "server" port.

By blaming Microsoft only, you are starting to sound like those rabid
anti-Microsoft people CJ was talking about. Microsoft had genuine economic
motivation to make their operating system easier for dumb people to get
working and it's unreasonable to lay all (or even most) of the blame at
their feet for catering to their audience.

In this instance, Windows 98 is better than Windows XP.

That's like saying "in respect to high-speed crashes, the Ford Model A is
better than the 67' Mustang".

Windows 98 was insecure in plenty of other ways, and since the vast majority
of computer security problems have more to do with social engineering than
software engineering, those insecurities in Win98 more than trump XP's
issues.

As long as you allow a human being access to the operating system, there
will be problems. Windows had a very specific, and very different set of
requirements from any other operating system on the market today, and it
evolved in a very predictable way. Sure, there's room for improvement, but
the blame game doesn't help anyone, and frankly, because the anti-Windows
rhetoric has always been so blatantly religious, with little rational
justification, it's not surprising that tiny nuggets of truth have been
ignored for so long.

I know if I had some zealot in my face all the time about my unholy
lifestyle choices, I probably wouldn't pay much attention to him if he told
me my zipper was down.

Pete