All right. I've had it!

For people who are not familiar with Linux, I suggest

http://www.opensuse.org

[Doobrey]

adz wrote:
Simple solution there, buy them a Mac mini, thats what I did.

Nooooo, mgerics should buy the Mac for himself and give the kids the PC with a clean install of Windows.
Then tell them that removal of any virus/trojan etc on it will be charged at professional rates, deducted from their allowance (to go into mgerics beer fund)

[DonnyEMU]

I hate spyware too, but there is a simple solution to your problems, which don't involve bashing m$..

1) Take control of your security settings.

    a) watch your web browsing habbits, don't go to sites that leave cookies, do be more careful about your browsing habbits. You can set security zones higher in IE, making it more of a pain to browse with.. Turn off activeX and automatic installs in the preferences etc.

    b) Change your web browser.. Move away from IE to firefox. Most people never have a problem with firefox at all.

If it makes you feel any better I have got to explore the Windows Vista beta and so far I am finding that very secure. They have a new security model system in place called UAP.. It reminds me a lot of Linux and MacOS, because with UAP on, anything that has to write to the Registry or requires administrator priveledges, it will come up asking you to log in with administrator rights.

Combine that with IE 7's more robust pop up protection and phishing filters, it seems a whole lot more secure. It was neat to go to a website that screws with your registry and find the OS asking you to log in as an administrator before the site did it's dirty work to trash your computer.

It's sad it's got to this state, but after seeing this I feel that Microsoft has this well in hand.. Remember it's not Microsoft's fault that these folks are exploiting.. Also, you should keep a lists of sites that are putting this spyware on your computer and turn the tables on them.. They are the one's who should be getting your wraith..

-Don

[Delta]

I really understand how you feel, I live that everytime I fix my sister's PC...  

Now when I pass a few minutes on a PC I go to the admin tools and disabled all the useless XP services (check the web for references on that) & install Spybot WITH TEATIMER tool enabled.

I also give a short class on Firefox and Thunderbird and warn the owner to never ever use Explorer or Outlook crap again.

Then I cross my finger that I wont get a "help me" call for at least the next month

[billt]

Welcome to the club. I won't run a Windows PC that doesn't have at least 3 items - antivirus, Spybot Search & Destroy and Adaware. It seems that each of these misses something that another will catch, so you can't use just one or two.

I haven't had any problems on my own machine, but you should see my mom's or my sister's machines. They've got every IM tool installed to load at boot and all kinds of other crap that they don't even use. I install antivirus and adaware and spybot but they don't update the things, I do it when I can but I'm not there to do it mroe than once or twice a year as I live so far away. My whole family is computer illiterate...

Then thre was that time my dad wanted to reinstall his machine as it was really messed up. So messed up it couldn't even make a boot floppy, the computer fair guy he bought it from way back when installed 98 first edition but gave him a 98 second edition full (not upgrade) install CD which refused to install over a different version. Dear god that was a long saturday on the phone but somehow we got it to happen. I never want to do that over a phone again!!

I'd really love to get an iBook when I get a laptop, but realities of what I need one for will force me to get an x86 one with Windows, but I do plan to have it dual-booting Linux as well. Hopefully in 2 months I'll have one, but I'm not looking forward to having Windows so conveniently nearby. At least I only use Solaris at work... Funny that the few people with Windows PCs have a couple times got infected with things that managed to munge the entire network though.

@billt

You should install the microsoft anti spyware tool on your relatives pc's.

It auto updates and scans unlike spybot and adaware.

It catches things that they miss too.

Every windows PC I have has SpyBot, AdAware and MSAntiSpyware on it, combine with Firefox and antivirus+firewall.

[Doobrey]

DonnyEMU wrote:
It's sad it's got to this state, but after seeing this I feel that Microsoft has this well in hand.. Remember it's not Microsoft's fault that these folks are exploiting..

Sorry Don, but I gotta disagree with you about it not being MS's fault.
If they'd made OE and IE secure in the first place there wouldn't be any exploits (yeah I know, over simplistic and ideolistic).

 Eg. What bright spark at MS thought it'd be a good idea for OE to run scripts contained in an email? ..and has anyone actually used that feature legitimatly?
 A while back I had problems doing a Windows Update, it couldn't connect to the server until I'd toned DOWN IE's security ..duh!

I'd be more interested in IE becoming standards compliant rather than added features 'inspired' by other browsers.
Also having IE not crash when it encounters a bad XML file would be nice..that one got me mad last week when a bug in one of my PHP scripts kept including illegal characters in an XML file   :pissed:

[mgerics]

@mdma

How dare you insinuate I look at porn...hold it, need to clean my screen...

[HopperJF]

Not forgetting antivirus/spyware/adware killers make the computer a lot slower.

Just move to Linux or a MAC  :-)

[mgerics]

mgerics Beer fund! Now that's an idea! (Who wants to donate? I'm in Clio, MI and Fridays I host Karaoke in Otisville MI at Ada's, corner of Wilson and M-15 [Enough commercials ])
)

'Cept the major drawback is that I can't afford new equipment unless ABSOLUTELY mandatory - I do have used stuff I can engage in the project.

Thanks to all for your comments; some of you seem to miss the point, but that's okay.

I DO use spybot, adaware, and an antivirus religiously. I'm just tired of HAVING to do so. Call me stubborn, pig headed, ignorant, whatever makes you feel good about yourself and your points of view , but no one will ever convince me that m$soft is faultless or otherwise not liable for the bulk of my time spent - their product is simply too buggy and open to these kinds of attacks (regardless of whether these attacks should happen or not [and yes, I DO blame those bleepers for what they do] or as my Dad would have said 'IRregardless of whether')

My aim is to try to become linux literate enough that I can convince my family and friends to switch and show them it's not to be feared but rather embraced; they DON'T have to be helpless or otherwise afraid to even turn the da=n machine on. Heck, I JUST got my wife to start using peecees, and she's no dummy (and is quite a looker, too! ['course, I may be a bit biased, but RRRRRH my eyes like it]).

I'm not the fastest cpu on the motheerboard, but I think i'm fast enough to learn. I just don't want to spend weeks trying to figure out how to use the thing. Yes, I KNOW there will be time spent to do it right and learn correctly and anything worth doing is worth doing right. Just get me going enough so Ican start using it QUICKLY and get that bug ridden thing called Windows OFF my hard drive!

[orange]

yes, antivirus usually makes computer slower, but NOT IF YOU DISABLE 'real time' scan. Install KAV, then prevent it from starting at boot up , and disable two services it creates. everytime you wish to install something scan it manually (updating the signatures first).
IMHO, antispyware isn't essential once you clean your system, you won't need it again if everything is configured right. of course, use EMULE for all er.. needs.. ;-)

My aim is to try to become linux literate enough that I can convince my family and friends to switch and show them it's not to be feared but rather embraced

Then the distro for you is SuSE.

http://www.opensuse.org

[mgerics]

@orange
I don't know who you are, but your avatar=very nice to look at

[vpamicue]

I presently Use Mandriva 2005 LE. I find it does exactly what I want. The big trouble with Mandriva is that the free distribution does not have any 3D graphics drivers. Yes you can DL them but are a pain to get up especially the ATI driver. If you are willing to pay $50.00 USD you can get Mandriva Discovery based on 10.1 release.  It has drivers and Browser plugins installed and pre configured. And It works flawlessly.
I would get Acrobat 7.0, Firefox comes with the dist as well as Video editing software, Sound Editing software and Open Office 1.4 (a good Idea woud be to not install an office package at all KOffice or Open Office go to openoffice.org and DL and install OpenOffice 2.0 Beta).
For best windows compatability you can try CrossOver Office from CodeWeavers it will install Windows applications directly to your Linux hard drive and alow you to run them (This includes MicroSoft Office Profesional).
Another plus is that Limewire and EDonky work great and have no Spyware .
For Gaming you can look at Transgameing the have a wine dist that is game specific and can play most Windows games. There are also many ports of Windows games to Linux (great thing is that a lot of the games will have better frame rate than on Windows).  :-D

[vpamicue]

Just an Addition:
The Mandrake install to a fresh hard drive is the easiest of any dist. If you use Discovery It will only ask you one question where you want to get you time from. When it is done you will be online and every thing working.
The distribution does not have any developer programs included but the include Mandrive Update and Install software funtions allow you to install them after you are up and running.

The biggest warning I can give you with any dist is to check your hardware carefully there are stuff that is not supported. Like most of the very new printers, a lot of modems, scanners can be a problem (parallel mostly the biggest problem) as well as USB Intenet type camera's.

The main problem with Mandrake/Mandriva is it's lack of stability.

Supports less hardware out of the box than other distro's too.