Refurbed PowerMacs

[ShadowHunter]

Refurbed PMG5s: are they any good? I am proposing something to my parents to get a Mac, but I know they will be budget concerned. Headless unit would be best, they would really hate to re-buy half their components.

In 2 days time, their WinXP machine became so full of spyware that it was using somewhere between 350 and 400mb of active RAM. Ad-aware is still running after an hour. I think I have closed 10 search toolbars, while fighting off an ad at least every 30 seconds. 2 DAYS PEOPLE!!! This is the worst it has ever gotten by far, but I am tired of cleaning out this PC constantly. It can't really be secure either, all this spyware and their CC numbers will be launched into space, or they will suddenly find porn on here that isn't so easily deleted....

 

[GroundLoop]

HA HA!

I laugh everytime I read a story like this on MR. The users always blame the OS for spyware/adware problems. Maybe you should teach your parents how to use a computer and how to avoid downloading things that they do not need. As far as pop-ups, that is easily solved by the Google toolbar (a very useful toolbar IMHO).

I have been an XP user since the day it came out and I have never had any of the issues that I read about on here. My XP install has never crashed and it has been up for months at a time. The only adware stuff that I have on my computer are based on browser cookies (which don't really do much anyways).

By the way, I am also an OSX user, and I find myself having to repair permissions on my PowerBook more often than I restart my XP server. All that I am saying is that a few preventative measure would make their computing experience a whole lot easier.

Bash me all you want for using XP, but I really am tired of everyone blaming the OS instead of themselves for downloading most of that crap in the first place.

Hickman

 

[ShadowHunter]

Re: HA HA!

Originally posted by Brian Hickman
...

Hickman

Believe me, I have tried for many moons to show the rest of my family how to NOT get spyware. Its simple enough, don't go to every website you think is good, don't download Real, and don't download games. Simple as that. But all they do is point fingers at each other. Its pretty ridiculous.

XP is the best Windows version to date (how good can a Honda be next to a BMW though? ). However, I do blame the OS some. Any OS that is that unsecure, that allows THAT much *ware to install without the user overtly knowing can't possibly be good.

I am simply sick of cleaning it out, so I'm not going to. They can either live with it or do what I suggest. Go ahead and laugh Hickman, but I'm sure there is someone here who can see my point and will answer my question.

BTW - I love the Google toolbar. However, it only kills popups for website-induced pop-ups, not ones that are caused by background programs. Either way, using a pop-up killer is attacking the symptom, not the problem.