Savage Henry said:
An out the box Mac is untroubled by such pop-up annoyances, users need no prior training to be 'safe'.
Neither do windows users. All they need to know is DON'T USE INTERNET IMPLODER.
Spreadfirefox.org Install and you are already 80% safer then before. Yes windows users shouldn't need to know this but that is a moot point. The fact is if you are going to use windows you damn well better know something about security and what to do to secure your system or you are screwed. I liken it to driving. You know where the wheel, accelerator, clutch, and breaks are. For windows you need to know this. For a Mac? its like sitting in the backseat while someone else is doing the driving. Both are legit ways to get where you are going. Macs just do it in style.
Macs scoring blanks on popups,worms,virus troubles etc, Again, the user would not need prior experience or heed any warnings to be happily going about their business.
And as I've told several other people spy/adware makers don't target safari for one reason. They are a minority. There is no reason to target a browser that consists of less then a handful of webpage hits.
Time will tell if this notion holds true now that in some est firefox is eating away at IE's market share big time. Some sites have reported that their hits consist of 18% FireFox and growing. I know for a fact that I still get the occasional javascript in FireFox from time to time. There is a possibility of developers creating a work around for the popup blocker. There always is.
It really isnt down to the users, it is definitely the whole Windows environment. If my washing machine broke down as often as my peecee at work, Id end up choosing to go down the river and bang my pants against the rocks.
And again I don't get why people are having so many problems in Windows. I've used it for years. Since migrating to the NT kernel (Going from NT to 2K, to XP.) I can honestly say I've BSOD's less then 10 times and 60% of that was because I was dicking with the drivers. Getting a round driver to fit into a square hardware slot so to speak. The rest. Well I know one was because I was using a beta version of Windows XP SP2 and it didn't like the WIFI NIC I had. Another was I was cycling between external monitor, LCD, and TV out too fast and all of a sudden DSOD with the error being the video driver .dll and last week I BSODed because I was trying to get a Windows XP audio driver to work on a newly installed copy of Windows Server 2003. (I've found that 2003 is much more stable then 2000 and XP.) One of the provided apps didn't like that I was running 2003 and choked on boot after installing the driver. The rest? Most if not all were because I'm a geek. I like putting the OS up on some stands, rolling under it and see how it ticks which occasionally causes the engine to sputter and die.
My 4 tips of stability for windows:
FireFox -> Auto Update -> Firewall -> Norton AV Corp Edition.
And to a lesser extent something other then MS Lookout. (aka MS Outlook.)
And those 4 tips aren't that hard to understand by the average user.
