starlifter
Deity
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2001
- Messages
- 4,210
I broke down and got the Zone Alarm Pro.
Yes, I'm a sucker.
However, no pop-ups anywhere. NONE!
That alone is worth it!
Actually, joe, you are the prototype posterboy computer consumer of the future. The excellent customer. The exact kind of user that Microsoft would like to crush. You evaluated competing options, tested it, demanded it do it's job, and when you were satisfied (not some bloated monopoly telling you), then you committed the ultimate sin against MS.... you bought software that actaully usurps the design of their OS, and contributes nothing directly to the MS coffers. And you demanded that what you bought actually do the job it advertized!
This is a profound lesson, but one that many consumers are unaware of... you have the right to make a choice, and even in the world of computers, competition among makers of software is a good thing.
I have literally shelf fulls of software in shrinkwrap boxes, and yes, thousands of dollars of MS software, most of which never performed as advertised, and most of which I was forced into buying because of the illegal methods that MS used to force the "choice". One such choice has been MS Office.... we in the gov't were forced into single-source for office software... I have not seen competing software since about 1994, when we could obtain things like AmiPro (word processing), Borland products (database, spreadsheet), etc. It is now the MS way or the highway... and so we must comply, if we expect to do any mobile computing, or routine work on our own system after hours (like writing evaluations, memos, running financial spreadsheets, etc.).
Anyway, congratulations, joe. You are not appreciated by MS, but they will try and change your options for you in the future when they get a firm grip on your sofware and hardware (assuming you are not using Linux or Unix by about 2007 or so).
