Comments on: Gates dishes out security promises

The Internet could learn a lesson from mainframes, says Microsoft's chairman. Also: The beauty of auto-update.
Web site virus attack blunted

The gall

The gall of Gates to claim Windows is patching quicker now!! There are at least two public vulnerabilities, and several more in a lab setting that Microsoft chooses to ignore! Our sites just removed admin access and scripting to every developer, because you cannot remove Internet Explorer and a new exploit could be imminent. This guy has so much bravado to claim such "progress" while his company sits back and laughs at real people trying to get real work done!

[powerclam]

Gates is a bad liar.

"The average time to fix on an operating system other than Windows, Gates said, is 'typically 90 to 100 days. You know, today we have it down to less than 48 hours.'"

This is plain ol' false.
MS allows bugs to linger till they release an all-in-one patch.
Linux bugfixes are MUCH quicker than anything MS can dream about.

[Steven N]

They 're going down...

MS is going down and they know it. They are messing with their customers, and they are getting fed up with it.

Also, claiming a firewall is the ultimate tool that will protect you from the bad spirits from the Internet, is simply misleading. If you stunble on an IE exploit, then your firewall will do nothing, simply because the comminication is initiated from the PC, and their firewall is too stupid to recognize anything of it.

I want an alternative!!! OS X for PC!!!

I don't have a problem with the speed of patching...

Like the subject says I don't have a problem with the speed of patching that Microsoft has set. I do however have a problem with the number of bugs that seem to be in a product when it is released. Maybe Microsoft needs to be looking at that.

Even though Longhorn is 3 years or more away which means the next major upgrade for Windows will have taken 6 years or maybe more, I think it is pretty crappy that when it is finally released after all of those years that it too will be riddled with bugs and security holes. And, it will be like death and taxes bugs and security holes in Microsoft software is a given.

Maybe Microsoft should stop trying to intergrate everything under the sun in to the OS and just create a stable secure OS and have the extras and extras that one can choose to use or not.

As I said note I am very peaved that we may have to wait for Longhorn before we get a major or minor upgrade to IE. IE is like in the stone-age of computer software now and it isn't getting any better. Most of the extras that come bundle with Windows is out of date including Media Player, the firewall, etc.

If Microsoft thinks that just because you can remove these things will keep people using them when they suck so bad, they have a rude awakening. Unfortunately, I am not convinced that the alternatives are a hell of a lot better. Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, etc. have their own set of problems. Most are small but large enough that they keep me from switching. Media Player replacements tend to be liek RealPlayer and include way too much marketing crap. So what your left with is alternatives that aren't all that great of an alternative.

Maybe it is time to go with a Mac or better yet just junk my computers altogether <Shrug>.

Robert