4 replies to this topic

[Humpty]

Quote:

"I absolutely don't argue that the highly tech-savvy consumer will and can search the Web for freeware and knock out 90, maybe 95 percent of the risk," said Lane Bess, Trend Micro Inc.'s general manager for consumer products. "That's not the largest (base of) consumers out there."

Despite all the free protection, primarily for Windows computers, leading security vendors are moving forward with plans to start selling their annual slate of security products this fall.

Article

[Eldmannen]

Sometimes they try get their software shipped with new computers.

Often they are crappy software with skins and resource hogging overbloated features. I guess some people don't know there are freeware alternatives.
And companies often don't use freeware, because they think its less good, so they pay for something just you have someone to blame if something goes wrong.

I feel sorry for all those unfortunate people who actually bought Norton Antivirus. That piece of resource hogging junk is even more difficult to get rid of than a virus, since it wont even uninstall.

[Andavari]

Eldmannen, on Sep 20 2006, 05:37 AM, said:

I feel sorry for all those unfortunate people who actually bought Norton Antivirus. That piece of resource hogging junk is even more difficult to get rid of than a virus, since it wont even uninstall.

Ditto! It's been that way for years and is unlikely to change.

Also just because something is freeware/open source doesn't mean it's any worse or better than commercial software. I prefer open source first then freeware whenever I can find it as an alternative to commercial software that may not even be updated as frequently or supported as much as a free alternative.

[Eldmannen]

Andavari, on Sep 20 2006, 02:34 PM, said:

Ditto! It's been that way for years and is unlikely to change.

Also just because something is freeware/open source doesn't mean it's any worse or better than commercial software. I prefer open source first then freeware whenever I can find it as an alternative to commercial software that may not even be updated as frequently or supported as much as a free alternative.

Yes, sometimes it can be better, sometimes it can be worse. Generally speaking, I prioritize free software / open source software. My opinion is that it usually is better. Open source developers make software because that is what they love todo. Commercial software developers make software to get their paycheck.
I also feel much more safe and secure with open source software. In open source software, spyware/adware/malware/etc is pretty much non-existant, you're more likely to win the lottery 10 times.

[Eldmannen]

On Norton Antivirus, not only do you need a CD-key, but you also need todo some "active registration" thing.
Freeware alternatives to commercial antivirus software are often much better, such as AVG Free. Though, NOD32 is commercial and supposedly pretty damn good.
Norton is not good though, and Panda isn't very cool either.