Regarding the time-consuming defrag: I take the view that prevention is better than cure!
Way back in the age of Win95, I advocated this little tip: In system properties, set the minimum and maximum swap file size to about 3 times the system RAM. This has two effects. While the system is fresh (such as the first run) it will be a few milliseconds slower because its accessing more disk space. After the system is aged (read: be used once) the computer will be many times faster than it would have been if you didn't do this.
By forcing a fixed-size swap file, every time the computer uses virtual memory (which is every session), the exact same space is used on the HDD. This contrasts with the default setting which will use a different area each time, interspersed with updated system files and new documents - that represents a source of significant fragmentation
I am not an Apple or *NIX fanatic. I am a provider of solutions and nothing more
So it seems Windows can be fixed, but its still not ideal. *nix takes a similar approach of using a separate partition for the swap file. The *nix approach has the advantage of being able to reserve the sweetest parts of a HDD before installing a system, as well as allowing the swap file to change size without risking fragmentation.
Its not about changing the size once or twice, or even ten times. Its that Microsoft would have it changing continuously and then using clever algorithms to try and clean up the mess. I must iterate that prevention is better than cure.
Now lets look at NT vulnerabilities, such as users failing to disable everything MS installed to fragment that HDD.
If you don't disable things such as ActiveX and MS Office macros, then you are exposed to serious threats. So being wise users, we switch these
off. In other words we pay for and install upgrades and immediately switch them
off - yeah, that's value for money!
If you don't switch them off you're apparently an ignorant who deserves system failure. Not everyone in my family is keen to learn Windows administration and I think its unfair to blame them for visiting a website.
One of the weakest things about NT-derivatives is that they prey on ignorance. For example, malicious spoofing requires the fake pop-up (or whatever) to appear familiar. Perhaps the fake uses icons that look familiar, phrases that sound familiar, and colours that match your NT theme. The Mac novice will see these and think "Why is there a dubious-looking Microsoft pop-up asking me to install updates for Windows on my Mac?" - Obviously the Mac novice is in a much stronger position than the Windows novice!
So the NT community strikes back with extremely powerful anti-spyware, anti-malware, anti-virus, recovery applications and hardened firewalls. They started with a marginally slower system, they unintentionally slowed it down thanks to that fragmentation issue, and then they intentionally go and install bucket-loads of defensive applications that bring their top-end computer to a c-r-a-w-l.
No amount of Spyware has ever slowed down a computer as much as installing one of the comprehensive NT-defending suits (McAfee, Norton or whatever..) and to make matters worse each such suite is better at defending against certain types of Malware so people install a second (Adaware, ZoneAlarm, etc.)
You are all sooooo wrong... I'm not an Apple fanatic! I'm just being an independently-minded realist. If you would like to taste my bias, please install the
free super-OS from Haiku.org, which is a product that I am contributing to
You forgot Darwin!
Good effort
Sadly, however, all of these distributions lack a good display system. X11 was intended for remote desktop administration and it does that very well. The cost is that X11 has a longer message path for many display operations and this makes it less efficient for desktop applications.
Furthermore, it lacks cycle-saving widgets. They put these things into competing desktop environments (KDE, Gnome, etc.) and applications written for one set of widgets won't work in another so you need multiple desktop environments and you soon begin to lose the beautiful efficiency that made the BSDs so sweet.
MacOS does provide an answer to this. Apple have done an excellent job of standardising their display system. While it is closed-source and not free, that might be why its also standardised *shrug*
The nearest open-source competitor is Haiku - check it out!
That's like saying diarrhea is better than constipation. Both are
.
Most people do not have a choice.
There are client-restricting applications for network security and these are often paired with an anti-virus suite. If your computer does not pass your fickle employer's-administrative desires, you might be denied access to your employer's WLAN
People are typically Windows users so they download and install the required anti-virus package (which might be McAfee or some other big name). Their license is paid for by their employer.
The same extends to most universities. Soon we will have no freedom at all!
