MICHAEL said:
Who in Hades said anything about Linux?
I don't give a shite what Linux does or doesn't do-
none, nada, zip.
It's your ego that demands we accept being
inconvenienced and annoyed because it's in our
own interest. "It is for our own safety"- there's
been a few monopolies and two bit dictators who
have the same sort of response.
Microsoft has simply moved from one extreme to
the other. Which will lead it back to where it was
before- because after many users turn UAC off,
it will be just like XP. Which is fine with me, but
Microsoft will have accomplished nothing. Users
will turn it off, unless Microsoft makes some changes
to the obnoxiousness of UAC. I guarantee you.
-Michael
I was using Linux as an example. Linux is generally regarded as more secure
than Windows. Only foolish users run Linux as root. They are generally
scorned by most in the Linux community. When using almost all OSs other than
Windows no one uses a root/administrator user for every day use. It is time
for Windows users to join the rest of the world. Even if you have all the
best protection, firewalls, anti-malware, turn off services, whatever, there
exists the possibility of a zero day exploit hitting you. The .wmf and .vml
exploits prove this. Running with lower privileges mitigates the problem to
a very large degree. The world is full of compromises which one must accept
in the name of risk management. Do you ride a motorcycle with no helmet,
drive your car with no seat belt, or jump out of airplanes with no
parachute? Each of us has an ego. Our ego determines what risks we will
accept. When the risks that you take affects people other than yourself then
other people have a right to object. Windows users have been the scourge of
the Internet and caused untold problems and financial losses because they
run with administrator privileges all the time. How many botnets of Linux or
OS X do you see? If their users ran as root they would be exploitable just
like Windows. Microsoft is as much to blame as the users because they have
fostered this culture. Vista is an attempt to fix it. With Vista you have
just as much control as you ever had with Windows. How you access and use
that control is different. The easiest way to keep the built in security and
not be annoyed is to run as a standard user. When you need elevated
privileges use "Run as administrator". You will have to enter a password
once then the task will run without repeated UAC prompts, very much like
other "more secure" OSs. Occasionally you will need to do some maintenance
that would be easier logged in as administrator. Reboot into safe made with
an administrator account. This is the way the rest of the computing world
works. If Windows doesn't change to this or a very similar model malware
will only get worse and eventually everyone will switch to an OS that does
use this model.
UAC just seems to exacerbate accessibility,