[ale] Seeking ways to getting around spyware on Windows

[Christopher Ness]

Sorry to be so late on this, but I have been out of town. Jason's answers are 
so wrong on this he may be outed as a M$ troll by now, but I'll try anyway.


On Tuesday 11 October 2005 06:59, Jason Smith scratched his head, bit his 
pencil and wrote:
> Geoffrey,
>
> --- Geoffrey <esoteric at 3times25.net> wrote:
> > I'm curious as to why windows for your parents.  Is
> > there a specific
> > software package they require?  I've had my
> > mother-in-law on Linux since
> > SuSE 7.2.  All she does is word processing
> > (openoffice), email
> > (thunderbird) and browsing (firefox).
> >
> > I can't tell you how much time this has saved me
> > when it comes to fixing
> > things.  Before I was over there at least once a
> > week, now it's simply
> > for upgrades.
>
> Unfortunately I cannot go over when there is a problem
> since my parents live on a different continent :) and
> are on a dialup connection.
>
SSH - easier admin over phone lines than windows especially dialup! The setup 
files are text

> Reasons why I believe Windows is best suited for them:
>
> 1. They have been using it since 1999

They haven't been using Windows very long either.

> 2. They know how to install and run software and to
> browse around the filesystem on Windows.

Do you really see that much difference? Maybe /home/mom would be more 
difficult to remember than c:\Documents and Settings\mom . As to the system 
files, you can lock them out and they won't mess anything up.

> 3. They are familiar with using the standard MS Office
> package.

Microsoft Office runs just fine on my copy of Xandros (2 not even the latest 
edition -3) , thank you.

> 4. They use firefox for browsing the Internet.
> However, they need some Windows only software such as
> Yahoo Messenger for voice chat.

Windows only? Google finds 1,200,000 entries the first few explain how
I don't use it so YMMV.

> 5. My father needs Excel for work related tasks and
> uses many esoteric functions. Openoffice is hard sell
> unless every single one of those functions worked just
> the same as it does under Excel.

Then run MS Office under Linux. It works just the same.

> 6. My mother know to use MS Paint for doing fun stuff.

Not even a very good paint program, but it runs under Wine as do hundreds of 
better paint programs.

> She knows how to play music on Windows and is more
> familiar with the config options on Yahoo messenger
> than I am especially related to audio chat.

> 7. I sometimes send them hardware that they can plug
> in and use. They know to follow instructions on the
> screen  which prompt them to insert the CDROM and run
> the installation program and so on.

Uh huh, such as? USB works for a great many device classes and yours is?

> 8. They are comfortable with following instuctions on
> Windows that I send them in an email or on the phone
> or in a voice chat session.

But Linux is sooo difficult...

> 9. Training them on Linux during a 3 week vacation is
> likely to be difficult given everything else on the
> agenda during a vacation :). Computer support later
> for an unfamiliar environment (for them) will probably
> be a challenge.

And how much OS training is really necessary compared to program training.
And what do you have to change on a well setup machine?

> My primary concern is that despite general awareness
> of the spyware problem ... they have without their
> knowledge installed software with adware/spyware in it
> and I am seeking ways to contain/prevent it.
>

Spyware? What's that? That's something you get on Windows. I run Linux.