My favorite day of the year is nearly upon us. We all experience it at different times but most of us experience it nonetheless. It's not Christmas nor is it New Year's Eve, rather it is the day your anti-virus/anti-spyware software expires. Now when you bought the program it came with "lifetime support" yet unless you pay your yearly fee of $39.99 then suddenly the code simply ceases to function. Without this addition to your PC then all of your private information is at risk of falling into the wrong hands or at the very least your computer will run like shit. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why?
Why is it that a huge monopolistic corporation like Microsoft can charge top dollar for products that put their customers at risk? Can you imagine the lawsuits that would follow if Ford Motor Company ceased supplying brakes on their cars? You couldn't safely operate their product. However Microsoft sells you software that leaves each and every customer vulnerable to attack and theft. How on Earth they are not mandated to provide consumers with basic protection mystifies me? They have no ethical problem with rushing products to market, products that require fixes even larger than the original files themselves, yet refuse to close the gaps that the unscrupulous can exploit with ease. We trust them with our most personal and sensitive information and they dont give a flying fuck. We have to seek out additional protection at our own expense, and many of their customers lack the required knowledge to do this properly if at all. If this isn't negligence on their part then really what is?
This is usually where all of the Apple fans tell you to "buy a Mac." Well if every bit of decent software wasn't written for the PC then maybe that would be an option? Why would I want a "virtual PC" when I have three actual PC's already? I once owned a glorified word processor called a Macintosh so no thanks. I would assume they have improved since those days but hackers are starting to target them as well so being unpopular is not actual adequate protection either.
We attribute computer geeks with the word "genuises" and what they do is quite impressive, but we could also associate the words "sheisters", "scumbags", "criminals", and "fear mongers" into the equation with relative ease. Inputing my credit card number into my computing machine should not evoke fear and introduce worry into my life, just as being involved in a car accident at low speeds shouldn't result in the steering column puncturing my lungs. Being forced to supplement programming that should already be complete amounts to little more than extortion and there seems to be no end in sight to this practice. There is a reason your computer asks you if you trust the source before initiating a download. Can you really ever say yes?
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