Ready for the shocker: For the most part we “like” Microsoft.
By that we mean that Microsoft produces high quality products and is not as uncaring about security as many in the “safe web business” would have you believe.
Microsoft has issues that we hope it will confront, but those issues are on average no more egregious than exposed in a great many other computer/web based businesses. Microsoft is concerned about security but it also shows poor regard for privacy.
First the good.
The Vista launch was a major failure for Microsoft in large part because it over-reacted to the incessant barrage about Microsoft’s lack of security. It is true that there were also a great many hardware driver problems in the first year, but most user problems — including installation of other software — were a result of obsessively trying to protect the user from himself.
In practice, once we had adjusted the operating system to allow us to exercise more responsibility for our own habits, Vista became a remarkably good experience.
The point here is simple: NO ONE can protect you from yourself. Those who shout the loudest are those who are trying to sell you “solutions” to curbing your own behaviour and Microsoft fell into that well. Hopefully it will be better addressed in Windows 7.
Windows XP is a rock solid, stable operating system that we still run on two-thirds of our systems. It will however eventually be left without updates creating the possibility of future security vulnerabilities. That day is not now and so we will not upgrade all of our systems now.
Windows Live is a very good service with some excellent features. We regularly recommend use of the Windows Live Writer as the tool of choice for maintaining web blogs. We do NOT recommend users give their real names or personal information when registering with Windows Live or any free Microsoft service because we do rate the Windows Live privacy policy as unacceptable and Microsoft privacy practices in general as suspect.
The Microsoft Office Suite is one of the best commercial alternatives available. We do not recommend Outlook as your email client for a number of reasons including the fact that its success makes it a major target for internet thugs and hackers, so you are better off with Thunderbird. OpenOffice provides a word processor and spreadsheet that we are not only the equal of MS Word and Excel, but in many aspects show superiority.
But OpenOffice has no competitive alternative to MS Access, one of the best performing and easiest to use database programs ever produced.
The online content provided free by Microsoft for developers and interested technophiles is very deep and very broad.
We even hesitantly like Bing! (Again only with appropriate privacy protections including Anonymizer.)
In terms of security, Microsoft has in many ways worked to be a leader. They were the first to offer truly automatic updates for users so that security vulnerabilities could be addressed rapidly. They have invested very significant resources in creating tools for users such as Windows Defender and the Malware Removal Tool. While we do not believe these tools are the best available, they are free and helpful.
Recognizing that Microsoft operating systems and software are the primary target of hackers, criminals and script kiddies is simply ackowledging the success Microsoft has had in becoming far and away the number one platform. If most computers ran Amiga, then the hackers would be targeting Amiga.
So in general, our view of Microsoft is in fact very favourable.
Our problems are in the heart of the corporate culture.
We do not believe that Microsoft values user privacy.
We believe we see a pattern where Microsoft muddies its obligations by using expansive rather than specific language, phrasing that can take on multiple meanings, yet worded to cause the casual reader to conclude stronger protection is being provided than what is actually written.
We believe that in its efforts to ensure that piracy is not occurring (which is actually in the security interests of everyone), Microsoft crossed over into using the mechanisms, including automatic updates, in ways that users had not understood nor explicitly agreed.
Where third parties have tried to play a helpful role, such as in creating single install update packages, Microsoft has used legal threats to squelch them out of existence without any consideration of alternative arrangements that would protect what needs to be protected while allowing the service to continue to be available to users.
Microsoft has also engaged in clearly anti-competitive behaviour in the past and every so often makes it appear all too willing to try to repeat those sins.
All of these incidents and practices lead to a lack of trust. Microsoft is seen when it is being heavy-handed and intrusive and its responses — unless seriously challenged from a position of strength — are often seen to be arrogant or dismissive.
So, the Secure Surfing Organization will point out those areas we believe that Microsoft is not living up to acceptable standards and we will continue to recommend alternative software for many uses. But let us not get carried away to concluding that Microsoft can do no good.
Our world is in fact a better place for the contributions Microsoft has made. It’s size, power and culture of hubris do need to be reigned in and accounted, but compared to the straightjacket that Apple puts its end users in, Microsoft’s a free-for-all.
