faq
flatforty
contribute
subscribe
configure
search
rdf
main
parent
thread
|
Re: Good or Bad? a few thoughts
by Fletch Hasues on Friday 08/Nov/2002, @15:25
|
>What? Of COURSE a choice of KDE will affect what information MS can collect! >Here's an example: When you install Windows XP, lots of things pop up over the >first few days imploring you to get a Microsoft Passport. When you first >connect to the Internet, it pops up and says you "Must" get a passport. If you >installed KDE as your shell, you wouldn't be seeing that stuff. Also, you >wouldn't be inclined to use MSN messenger and you wouldn't be subjected to >MS's (cleverly disguised) advertisements for MSN.
I don't follow your reasoniing on how a built in "advertisement" (a la a plug for you to run MSN Messenger) is taking information back from the user UNLESS the user subscribes/buys what the seller is selling. If I run Windows XP, I don't HAVE to run MSN Messenger, so thus they will not get any information that means. I also believe, regardless of the interface (unless of course you put special handling in the interface), that if you attempt to connect to the Internet, you will still be prompted to see passport, etc. You are still running Windows, you are just not using explorer as your shell. But here again, I guess it really depends on what sort of handling has been put in place for these scenarios in the proposed shell for Windows as well as how much the shell can disable and replace of the operating system's functionality. Right now, I am discussing the interface, not the core system. The network components are not considered part of the interface. The wizards could be, but so far, all the shell replacements I have seen with Windows still use many of their wizards UNLESS the person does additional hacking by disabling wizards and certain explorer interface components, including the libraries that might pull up such wizards.
>Here's one reason. When you run Windows, all of your file-folder windows run >in the same process as your desktop shell (explorer.exe). If one thing >crashes, the whole shell goes down. KDE takes the much more sensible approach >of having everything run in a separate process, so a crash of one component >won't take down everything else.
This depends on the "thing" that crashes. I do recall if some process invades some protected area of memory that explorer.exe has, it will crash it, sure. However, throughout the years the protection of this has gotten better and better. In fact, you can choose to have explorer run different folders in different process spaces now. Again, this isn't a boast for Windows, but if you are telling me that KDE can't be crashed to where you knock the interface, you are incorrect. I have done this on occassion. But on the surface level, you do make a good point. I think that KDE's outlying structure is much better than Windows. I don't believe in the way Microsoft has structured their operating system in having some of their object libraries stored at certain particular system levels, but I'm not opening that can of worms right now.
>You might think that. But consider other MS products, such as the IIS >webserver. IIS's open source competitor is Apache. Apache is about twice as >popular as IIS. Yet IIS is the one that gets the lion's share of the viruses! >All the recent damaging viruses (code red 1/2, nimda, etc) have been IIS >worms! I think MS products are simply less secure.
Sure, I agree that a great deal of MS products are insecure, but this comment is particularly off topic. We were discussing the operating system, not the an Internet server (of course knowing how MS bundles everything together these days, I suppose we can discuss this even though this has nothing to do with the interface). I could bring up the SSL bugs that have hurt Apache in the past, but again I love Apache, and I'm not defending Microsoft. You should ask yourself however, is the only factor involving the release of such virii is the fact that it IS Microsoft? Or does it also involve that so many people have been involved in using IIS over the years in business applications that due to is popularity in the past, its common to find their problems over time. I love Apache, and I think its a wonderful product. I hate being involved supporting IIS knowing the amount of time, planning, and support one has to give to the product. But, I have to state that knowing that there are more people commonly code for Win32 platforms due to marketshare reasons, it would go to say that more people would have experience in system programming to know how to exploit Windows' vulnerabilities. Had everyone been programming for Linux mainstream (and there was alot of anit-sentiment in the camps), I personally feel that Linux would have more virus threats for it as well. I can't say how successful they would all be for obvious reasons of Linux's structure. But hey, Linux is just a KERNEL not a WEBSERVER. So brining in IIS and comparing it to Apache is irrelevant in the first place. |
|
|
![[KDE Dot News]](http://www.kde.org/dot/Images/kdedotnews.gif)
