[Raptor]

A couple things to note. Competition in industry is good. If MS was allowed to go unopposed in every facet of computers, nothing would ever improve other than the companies bottom line. With Linux and Mac and the other less known OS's and compatible software out there, Microsoft has been forced to improve on their software. It also requires people that are not cattle and blindly follow the biggest player hoping they are guided in the right direction. People that support the other options are helping everyone even if that is not their goal. Now as far as Firefox goes, it is the smaller of the two, Mozilla has more features and is a little better overall IMO. Either of them are good, and if you give them more than a day, you will continue finding things that elevate them above Microsofts browser.

One of the biggest things I can tell you is in the world of virus and security issues, MS products are always going to be the biggest target for the authors. They have always been known to be user friendly first and security and performance second and for that, you could end up paying dearly. DCOM support is just one example, it is pretty much not required nowdays, extremely vulnerable and still left in Microsoft software for the few people that might try using it. The Melissa virus as well as a number of other worms and viruses exploited this service and yet it still remains in the system. You have to actively hunt down 2 patches and edit your registry to disable it. Would it not be smarter for Microsoft to offer it as a separate package and only the people who need it could install it? Of course, but then their system wouldn't be as "shrug and pray" (plug and play) as they advertise. IMO they trying to be all things to everyone at a cost of being much less reliable and much more insecure.

Now that I mentioned it, how many of you windows users (XP as well) are going to go without looking up info on the DCOM issue and how to fix it. How many of you would have never known there was an issue with it? It is just one example of many security issues. But people won't inform themselves, will just keep closing their popup windows and using their IE and allowing tons of people on the net access to their computer without their knowledge. Typical cattle. Quit following the masses blindly, try things that are potentially better and raise the bar for all the competitors.