Unfortunately, most home users are still on dialup, which makes it very difficult to stay up to date with the latest patches. Service Pack 1 alone is around 150 megabytes, IIRC, not to mention all the other ‘critical updates’.
Then why are you here, for example? The SDMB is dedicated to fighting ignorance. Here you are, saying it’s okay to consciously decide you want to remain ignorant of certain things. Anyone who just wants to “get work done” is having a shitty life. Learning how everything works and gaining analytical skills are good things. Using *nix cultivates this, Windows doesn’t.
UnuMondo
Mr2001: You have to download a lot when you let updates pile up. The RPC patch was under 1.5MB, and did not have any prerequisites on Windows XP (AFAIK). 1MB every few days is not a bad load for most dialup users, if patches are consistently applied.
okay, I put:
#!/bin/sh
rm -rf *
and email it to you and you double click on it. If your HD gets hosed because of it, is it Linux’s fault?
I think clear evidence of Windows not being tested as thoroughly as it could be is just the sheer amount of viruses + worms running rampant through it. Keep in mind a lot of webservers run *nix and people do indeed try to crack those, but it always ends up that Windows servers are easier to crack. For the most part, *nix, like someone mentioned above, is actively trying to be exploited by, ummm…, a lot of people solely for the purpose of fixing those exploits and making *nix a more secure OS. Even if *nix were as popular for home users as Windows, it most likely wouldn’t have the rampant problems and viruses because *nix has fewer exploits.
But the service packs tend to be rather big to download on a dial-up connection, and generally the service packs are the most important downloads when it comes to protecting your Windows computer.
Also, in response to Dewey, to use a *nix system does not require a lot of computer know-how or interest in computers. If you happen to be active in that area however, it’ll definitely be much more worthwhile to you to use a *nix system, as you have more power and the ability to do more than with a Windows or pre-Mac OS X system (I don’t know a lot of MacOSX yet…). Like someone else said above, the newer installations are pretty simple, and take about as much effort as an XP installation. (However, because of Windows’ monopolistic behavior, XP still has an edge-up because it’s pre-installed on most systems -_-
Shal
Actually, unless you were in admin mode(which is a lot less common in *nix than it is in Windows), that’d only hose the files of that particular user. All the important (OS + other users) information would be left alone.
Christ, what an absurd response.
Everyone “consciously decides to remain ignorant of certain things,” because there are a limited number of hours in the day and a virtually unlimited field of things to learn about. I could spend my time learning about how the fax machine works, or I could spend it learning about new developments in the law, and refining my understanding of those aspects of the law I already know about. Which do you think is a more useful and productive use of my time? Which do you think my clients find more valuable?
Why on earth would anyone consider my life to be “shitty” because I disregard the one in favor of the other?
As for the rest of you: I thought I was pretty clearly not disparaging Linux (or *nix systems generally). Indeed, I agree that they have much to offer, depending on the needs of a particular user or company.
What I was disparaging was a certain type of fanboy exemplified by UnuMondo, who evangelize *nix systems on the grounds that they “teach users new things about how computers function everyday,” as though that was something of even the slightest importance to a non-tech business enterprise, and as though apathy to learning that knowledge is a character flaw.
- cough cough *
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Um, back to the actual OP, I just wanted to add a bit. As has been said previously, those so-called hidden folders are only hidden as a convenience. The folder view that you see when you open up “Temporary Internet Files” (TIF for short) is a special view, along the same lines as the “Filmstrip” or “Thumbnails” folder views (e.g. “My Pictures”). The TIF view effectively puts those temporary files in a sandbox and warns the user that they can point to malicious things precisely because they can. When I try to open a web page from this folder, I get this message, “Running a system command on this item might be unsafe. Do you wish to continue?” The novice user will most likely be scared by this and select “No.” This is as it should be.
As was stated before, the files present in the TIF folder view are exactly the same files that are present when the Content.IE5 folder is directly targeted. Nothing is being hidden.
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