why is microsoft so bad?

WhiteWashMan

just wondering if there is actually any reason why ppl are always bashing microsoft?

lets face it, a lot of ppl here actually have jobs indirectly because of them.

just wondering like.

oh and i happen to like windows 98

Dr_Teeth

Eamo, have your trolling skillz truely deserted you? Say it's not so!

Teeth.

Hecate

I think its all down to begrudgery, people see commercial success and they take out their frustrations on it.

Paladin

No its because MS release the most buggy software that companys selling PC's are almost forced to install pre-sale and as a result the little company's with the well written, more useful and flexible code in their software, get smothered. Lets face it. Netscape is better than IE. Delphi is better than VB, and Linux is better than Win. The only reason we use the MS ones are because they are so widespread and compatible because of MS flexing its corporate muscle.

That said,it is a fair point that they provide jobs.

ChRoMe

Fair enough there is a good few problems with a lot of microsoft applications that are released but are microsoft the only people who release buggy software? It took the "allmighty" id about 10 patch's before q2 was complete. And whats all this about almost being forced to install their software on new machines. Thats the choice that the computer manufacturers make. If it wasnt for microsoft computers wouldnt really be as accessable to people as they are today. If you have used any win9x machine you can use them all. The same cant really be said for linux. And the reason for all the corporate muscle? becuase microsoft are the best at what they do. Sure it isint perfect but what is?

ChRoMe

"I like happy things. I'm really calm and peaceful I like birds bee's I like people. I'm really happy and gleeful like when my teacher sucked my dick in preschool" - Eminem

Hobbes

Read the DOJ finding of facts on the MS case. It will explain it better then anyone here. Some scary stuff in it.

I also might add Chrome is spouting BS. MS set the whole computer industry back years just so they could remain on top.

Anything at all which would in the slighest allow a user to move to a different operating system, MS killed off.

MS aren't in trouble because they are the best, they are in trouble because they were naughty.


[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited 10-02-2000).]

Kali

windows 98 desktop
OR
Enlightment/GNOME desktop.

hmmm.
not even a single glance at 98.

DeVore

"Netscape is better than IE. "

Not in my opinion, and the general feeling is that IE is a perfectly acceptable browser.

Other then that, what did you expect from a company? That they should just give everything away free and allow fair competition. Dont be so naive. Yeah its pretty ugly and not healthy but you cant hate them for it. Why shouldnt they squissh their competition as much as possible *within the law*. Its the last caveat there that has them in trouble with the DoJ.

Tom.

Vincent

I prefer microshaft internet explorer, over netscape but after that i totally agree with paladin, anyone that has incoming(came with that big mad microsoft joystick me friend got ) do a virus check on it, can't remember name of the virus on it, but it makes other virus's u might have invisable. *****es the lot of them

Hobbes

yea IE is better then NS.. least on the MAC in general (it has a memory leak somewhere and isn't as Java friendly).

On Windows, at least NS doesn't take down your whole system when it crashes.

Your right, no biggie about crushing your competition. Perfectly legal, it's just that they went about it illegally.
http://law.about.com/medianews/law/library/docs/blmsfind.htm

SCRUB

All the bickering about them is a load of old horse ****e . I just installed redhat 6.1 there the other day and i have to say it was a bit of a pile of sh*t as far as i was concerned . The installation was a load of b0llocks and then took up a bloody gig . It was god damn buggy and annoying .

I think if that was as wide spread as windows people would be running to Microsoft in my opinion .

As regards netscape and IE ... there both as buggy as each other and i dont really care with one i use to be honest .

Hobbes

Werid, I have a Redhat server here running for just close to two years, and have only had to reboot it twice (both times because of power outage).

No other machine I have ever worked with has had such good up time.

Paladin

Having spoken to lots of computer programmers (mostly elec. engineers actually) who are VERY good at programming, and from the reading of several magazines, I have discovered that although IE is a perfectly useful browser, and might be nicer to use, the code used is not as smooth as netscapes. Of course the average punter cares not about code and so likes it more than netscape. It was the code point I was trying to make.

In reference to hating them, I never said I did. What I will say now is that I do Manchester Utd have helped football, but I still hate them. Thats how I can h8 MS. Because I can.

As for flexing corporate muscle. I am not naive in thinking that MS shouldnt try to dominate the market. What I am saying is that MS have broken the law in squishing anyone who could compete with them (perhaps a paradox here since if they *could* compete they wouldnt have been squished). I dont doubt that Microsoft have helped the growth of computers, but by the same token they have slowed down the possible growth. Many companys that tried to compete were put down or bought out. Those they couldnt do that to were cheated! E.G. netscape.

Might I point out that the melissa virus effects MS outlook express and NOT Netscape navigator.

As for Linux being crap. *sigh*. So you are complaining about size? Taking too much Hard disk space hmm? AAAAAWWWW While running in its minimum capicity it uses less than half (possibly quarter) the rescources Win9x does (rescources as in your computers ability to process information, not its hdd space).

All this said the b4stards still have a monopoly, with Linux growing though. You have to give them credit in the corperate world if not in the programming world. Every goddamn thing has to be MS compatible first and formost (almost everything). The result is that I have to play most of my games through it.
Wan the red hat!
Thats my 20p's worth.
Actually its probably closer to a quid at this stage.
*reflection* wow. This is my first pure non-spam post in ages

Steven

Netsc@pe using bogger

ButcherOfNog

EXCUSE ME?????? WTF ARE U ON ABOUT?

Having spoken to lots of computer programmers (mostly elec. engineers actually) who are VERY good at programming, and from the reading of several magazines, I have discovered that although IE is a perfectly useful browser, and might be nicer to use, the code used is not as smooth as netscapes

u really don't have a ****ing clue, do you?

Hobbes

If it makes you feel any better, MS licensed thier IE code from a company called SpyGlass then overnight wiped out the company by giving away IE free (all thier customers dropped Spyglass and took IE seeing as it was the same codebase).

Steven

Roflol, this is even funnier th@n those pure sp@m thre@ds . No-one h@s @ clue wh@t the other people me@n

Paladin

How about something a bit more substantial than profanities BofN?

What that implied was that my sources are numerous and reliable.

You dont have to believe everything that you read, but if your going to dispute it, resort to disproving it rather than childish swearing.
The subject at hand however, is very opinionated and there is no definate fact. Just opinion. That was mine. Everyone else had theirs. They are entitled to. If your opinion differs, it doesnt mean you have to insult others.
Im sorry if my consumer views insulted you.
I also think Mars is better than Snickers because its ingredients are mixed better and it tastes nicer

[This message has been edited by Paladin (edited 10-02-2000).]

DeVore

If it makes you feel any better, MS licensed thier IE code from a company called SpyGlass then overnight wiped out the company by giving away IE free (all thier customers dropped Spyglass and took IE seeing as it was the same codebase).

Absolutely correct. I'd do it too. Business is war and if you are in the game to make friends you are going to be one lonely (unemployed) mofo.

Does this mean you have to be a bastid to succeed? No. It just means there are a lot of bastids out there looking to burn your company so their market is emptier.

The problem with Spyglass wasnt that they got burned by M$, but in their naive hippy fantasy of the business world they sold their code to their biggest competitor.

"Hey man, thats a nice baseball bat, can I see it for a minute?"
"Sure man, share and share alike after all"

**WHACK!**
**WHACK!**
**WHACK!**

"ta. here you go. Oh you're dead. Tough."

I bet you all those Spyglass programmers got great jobs with M$ maintaining their code.
The business people got eradictated from the business gene pool.

Tom.

acous

come on .. linux sucks as a desktop OS unless you're gonna spend ages configuring it. i dont mind configuring but i do mind endless howtos and you end up finding that some things just cant be done... ask a linux guru and they tell u of some obscure program to install... now yes linux very stable but not all these little apps are. and thats what it feels like, a load of little apps stuck together, it just doesent work well. yet.

i love the idea but its not up to scratch as a desktop os for me.

and paladin if netscapes code is cleaner how come it crashes more? surely stability is the aim in coding and not a few hundred k less memory usage.

sry bout the rant

Hobbes

No they didn't Devore. They licensed the use of the code, they didn't buy it outright. I believe it was only a stop gap until they wrote thier own. But yea, it was stupid of Spyglass to assume that MS would play nice.

Giving away IE free was to put NS out of business but they had the server business to fall back on.

Anyway there are loads more examples of unfair business practises in the FOF.

A lot of the changes in the last year came about because of the court case.

Oh yea on the Linux sucks as a desktop. Kind of true for the typical person. But I recall reading on /. they reckon they will have a fully workable straight out of the box Desktop version for Joe Newbie by the end of the year.



[This message has been edited by Hobbes (edited 10-02-2000).]

Paladin

Netscape crashes more?Hmmmm. Not on my pc tho
Business IS war btw. You have to accept it, but you dont have to like it

Karla

.

[This message has been edited by Karla (edited 10-02-2000).]

Karla

Yeah they had the server business to fall back on.

Here's an interesting article by Tim O'Reilly about how Microsoft almost gained control of the web-server world.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/11/16/microsoft_servers/index.html

Just imagine trying to surf an Internet made up of 100% MS products. Ewwww.

As for IE and Netscape. They both have some pretty cool features, I especially like the HTML checker in Netscape. Anyway, does it have to be one OR the other?

Use both of them

Hobbes

I see MS are now being investigated by the EU.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34253,00.html

One of the funnier things is, if they are proven guilty the EU can tell them to make changes to w2k or get the **** out of Europe. As well as another case which could be a 10% revenue fine (any bets MS forgot to grease the wheels of the EU )

Steven

I'd just like to say, here here on the mars thing and nothing actually causes my pc to crash. It does it spontaneously on it's own. Good ol' windows '95

WhiteWashMan

well, i have to say that in my time as tech support to american market for IBM i learned a lot of things
the main thing i learned was that 98% of calls were user caused problems
i have never had any problems with win95 or 98 at all
every game i buy (for the leet haxors among you) and every application i buy will run it.
for a stand alone it does everything you want it to.
i have never used linux, i have heard many stories about it...mostly about how you cant install this that or the other and when you can its a series of pervers and obtuse commands and proccedures to get it running.
windows does it in about 2 minutes and is 99% gaurenteed to work (with the exception of that stupid sb live sound card!)
if there was the exact same amount of software/hardware support and ease of use and a decent gui with linux, itd prolly get a thumbs up from eeryone as it 'seems' more stable. but is that coz ppl who use linux actualy have to know what they are doing, or is it just that there are millions of plebs hwo havent a bog about pcs that use windows?

besides, they have some excellent products including age of empires2 and the odd joystick.

but at the end of the day, it is about war...er business. i use windows coz its easier. i have a job admining NT. thanks microsoft. i will shortly be making lots of money because of you

DeVore

Some of it is Emperors new OS.
If you want to be L33333t you have to swear by the most obscure port of FreeBSD to a VAX system. The more obscure and the more you SWEAR its the greatest thing since the zx-81 (the only TRUE computer) the more l333333t you are.

If anyone questions you, tell them they are L4M3 A$$ F4Gs and you will Ha><or them, or ignore them and tell everyone they are lusers. yeah.

DeV.

rat

Absolutely correct. I'd do it too. Business is war and if you are in the game to make friends you are going to be one lonely (unemployed) mofo

you make me sick

[This message has been edited by rat (edited 11-02-2000).]

WhiteWashMan

that would make you poor....

sutty

as a non programer i'd like to make a point about ns and ie. look at the install size of them ns(a little over 40 megs and thats with all the little apps) ie(just the explore is over 75 megs with all the little apps its over 150 megs)

ie takes up to much room on the hd if you ask me.

as for redhat 6.1 taking up a gig, look at what you get with it. you get tones of apps.
win 2k askes that you free up 650 megs before you install it and mine takes up 750 megs and i have no good drivers for it there all very basic drivers. the dx7 that comes with it cant be detected by anything that needs it.

its also down to supply and demand. people that are just getting a computer for there first time have no idea about which is best windows or linux? most of them dont even know what linux is. if someone was to make a linux that was pnp it would more than likely out do windows.

ps.. if you want to point out my bad spellings go on i dont care.
but if your going to try and insult me come up with something better!!

---

I pulled the plug on Dublan

SCRUB

Linux sucks ass .. there i said it ok
now can i get some sleep.

*there has got to be a morning afterrrrr so i can hold on throught the nigghhhttttt*

Excelsior

The way I see it is:
MS are leading because
They had a huge head start
They have the finest marketing in the world
They recruit the best ppl, coders and business guys
They have a fu.ck off clever owner
They want to succeed
They are young
And finally: Their programs satisfy

But how can I say such a thing?
The truth is, not everyone out there is an amd using quake-nerd obsessed about cooling fans for their cpus. Not everyone understands inheiritance in c++. over 95% of ppl use windows. of those i'd say 0ver 95% are perfectly happy using windows.
engineers and coders are valid users of unix. it suits technical things better.

unfortunately for linux, computer science is going to be about user-friendlieness for the next generation. wni9x is a perfect example of this at best. it is a standard (1st requirement for the spread of a technology) it is easy and when not pushed, it works just fine. sorry kids, most people dont push it.
linux will never defeat it even if it is some day better, because win9x has brand credibility. before linux gets brand credibility, and widespread perception of its qualities can occur, linux nerds who cant see past their fat, sci-fi obbsessed bellies will have made it incredibly uncool. that might not be pretty, but its true. meanwhile windows will become more and more pretty.
paladin's quote about talking to VERY good computer programmers on this cracks me up. i'm putting that away somewhere on my harddrive so i can reel it out again someday somewhere else. classic example of the arrogance of computer talented ppl.

some day you'll have no advantage over my dad because his programs will be super-easy to use, and all your knowledge of obscure inanities will fade.

and maybe someday i'll have macs.
sorry for the rant.

(i'm not really andy, am i?)

deRanged

it might be an idea to separate the thread into two - one debating microsofts business strategy and one debating their products.
As far as business is concerned - they have a great marketing company. it works really well. business is a back-stabbing cutthroat world. they recognise this and are great at it.just ask Bill Gates' bank manager.
as far as their products are concerned, I'm not particularly anti microsoft - I prefer not to use them (I prefer solaris) but they're not as bad as people make them out to be. I've had a 95 machine for 3 years and never seen a blue screen.
Linux is a great os for developers - but not really for home users. win is good for games and non-professional computer users.
I think it boils down to the purpose you plan to put your machine to.
some os's are better for certain things.

Gengarx

Ah yes Chiaran has finally posted a reply - only a matter of time I thought
As far as I'm concerned with the browsers, I started off with IE so I've just decided to stick with it - it would have been the exact same with Netscape if I had loaded it up first. They are both good working browsers with little or nothing in between them as far as performance or reliability. I have tried both but just preferred IE.

As far as whether Linux is better than Windows I'm afraid for me the loser has to be Linux. I agree with Acous and his point that there are far too many little apps involved in it, far to much hassle installing it and really as far as support goes it doesn't really have much. I use my computer most for playing games and Windows is THE platform for doing that at the moment. I'm in no way loyal to Microsoft - if there ever is a better version of Linux than Windows I'll use it but its just that at the moment the disadvantages of Linux far out weigh the advantages of it - plain and simple. I have NEVER had big problems with Windows so why change when there is no better alternative?

The way Microsoft products take up more disk drive space than its competitors really in my opinion isn't an issue and certainly not when you consider the size difference - its small change for gods sake compared to the size of say some games, taking up close to half a GIG. Anyhow the sizes of harddrives are massive too.

I agree with Chrome on the matter of reliability too. Windows has very few bugs in comparison to other programs out there and Quake2 is one good example though there are plenty of others

In the end the only real reason that people hate Microsoft has to be their corporate flexing for sure and the way the have consistently cornered the markets they have entered and crushed quietly any competition along the way. Business is war but Microsoft have gone a bit too far……..

samresh

i cant see past my fat SCI-FI OBSESSED belly

Excelsior

Hail Cummins.
Nice to see you round my friend. Excellent post- pleasure to read.

ButcherOfNog

now that i've got a mo

Netscape is technologically lagging so far behind IE at this stage that its a total pain to code applications for both browsers. The farce of Netscape 5 is the main problem, are we ever gonna get it? XML was included sa an afterthought in it. like hello.

Netscape is a dumb browser, if it gets a HTML page with a non closed tag, it can't handle it. Yes it forces you to develop clean HTML, but then i move on to its javascript support *groan*. on second thoughts i'll not depress myself. Oh and why did they think it was a good idea to have navigator & communicator telling webservers they were different browsers? and you notice the very poor way the app resize code works? and its bookmark system is crap.

IE is a nice browser to develop for, Netscape is not. I'd love to know what real world developers told you otherwise.

Maximilian

Hobbes? just what exactly is it you do?
Do you get paid for surfing the net or what?
just curious....
I know Eamo is bad for dossing off and playing with the internet, but......

Shinji

Agreed completely with Nog. I've developed most things that you can push through a browser window; html, javascript, java applets; and in all cases, IE was the better browser to develop for. The technology behind the Netscape browser just doesn't hack it.

As a desktop environment, all flavours of Linux STILL suck, not only for newbies, but even for those of us with a fair bit of PC experience. I started using computers seriously when the height in user-friendliness was having a built-in BASIC interpreter, and you plain couldn't use a computer without knowing how to program. But I still find Linux to be a pain in the a$$ to use as a desktop OS, and NT is catching up quick on serverside as well, for my money.

If I were asked to implement a full solution, ground up, I'm sorry, but I'd go for Microsoft stuff all the way. It works well together, and they have a product every step on the way up. Server OS? Windows 2000. Mail system? Exchange and Outlook. Webserver? IIS. Desktop OS? Windows 2000 again. Browser? IE. Applications package? Office 2000.

I have to say, though, that Microsoft development tools DO suck hard compared to the Borland/Inprise counterparts. Delphi/C++ Builder **** all over VB and VC++, for my money (calling MSVC "Visual" should be banned by the advertising standards commmittee!) and its interesting to note that Corel just bought Borland... Corel who are trying to make Linux into a proper desktop OS in the form of Corel Linux.... Hmmmmmmmmm.

Ja,
Rob

deRanged

hmm. lots of people are saying linux sucks - why ?
I found it easy to install (20 minutes) and I find the interface much better than windows. more freeware, I can customise it the way I want it, more memory free for runing apps.
what are your complaints about linux ?

and I agree about netscape and IE - IE is now better than netscape.

ButcherOfNog

i've nothing against linux, as i spent a good few yrs working with unix, so its not exactly all new to me, but

redhat linux 6.1 - the getting started manual, 351 pages? I rest my case

SantaHoe

Well "deRanged", (if that is your real name), I like Linux too.
It's the only OS that hasn't crashed on me (yet), but to get my sound and internet working, I'll have to replace my soundcard and modem, which I couldn't be botherd doing if they work fine in windows.
Well, that and the fact that my UNIX-FU isn't up to scratch.

deRanged

oddly enough deRanged isn't my real name.
I can't say I read the manual for RedHat. Just installed it. I agree though, getting graphics cards and sound cards working can be a serious hassle.
That said I've had hassle like that on windows as well. (probably cos I don't know much about wintel).

SantaHoe

Well I know Windows and DOS, but I don't find any of that **** usefull in Linux.
I also emailed Zoom and they told me that my modem won't run under Linux.
Redhat has my sound card on the "Unsupported" list.
So all I can do is buy new gear.

amp

I've installed Red hat linux 5.1, Caldera Open Linux Lite, and Slackware Linux. Took me ages even after buying Que's excellent Using Linux.
Eventually I got Redhat installed and just couldn't for the life of me get my modem or other hardware working with it. Win98 just picked it up on boot, installed the driver and hey presto I was on the net. So I use win98 and yeah I use Ie5 and Office2k.
That said when Linux has full plug and play and is easier to install I'm going to switch (or at least dual boot), because Linux has got momentum. Most linux developers seem to see it's limitations and are making improvements.
I don't like Linux at the moment but I love the principle behind it. An OS by the people for the people.
There's a lot of reasons I don't like Microsoft. Early versions of their modem registration scanned your harddisk for programs by other companies. That's the equivilant of buying a car and having the dealer park secretly outside your house and see what other cars you might have bought.

Business is war but even in war there's susposed to be rules like the Geneva convention. Microsoft have crossed the line far to often for my liking.

True, I have a career thanks to my knowledge of MS products but that doesn't mean I have to like the company. I'm trying out other operating systems like Linux and soon BeOS. Why? Because I feel that being locked into one companies products is dangerous. If free operating systems become dominant then companies are going to look at their bottom line and make the switch. I switched from Intel to AMD K7 because I got a better CPU for a cheaper price.

To paraphrase:
A computer on every desktop - Micrsoft
A viewscreen in every room - 1984

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Play GLminesweeper! Lunacy Abounds!