Sunday, June 27, 2004
Pop Ups:
You know what my favorite pop ups are....The ones that try to get us to buy software to stop annoying pop-ups. Isn't this the same thing as extortion? They harass us over and over in the hopes that we will in fact hire them to stop themselves and others. Does this actually ever work? Is there anyone out there who would actually pay someone to stop annoying them? I won't. There must be someone out there foolish enough to fall for this, if there isn't then how can these guys still be in business. If I find out that a company engages in this kind of business I would absolutely not buy anything from them, ever. What even upsets me more is the fact that Microsoft is one of the worst offenders. My kids like MSN, in order to get it you have to enable their software which bombards us with pop-ups, to the extent that sometimes the internet becomes virtually useless. We are restricted by not having access to high speed internet, rural area and all that. The pop-ups take so much resources, and take precedence over my efforts, that I am left waiting very long times to view the pages I want to see. Dealing with Spam was a joke in comparison, a simple change of e-mail address effectively stopped 98% of all the spam I was receiving (200- 300 spam e-mails daily). Admittedly, the fault for this lies with my family giving out the e-mail to every site they visited- they have learned the lesson. Adding to the problem is the fact that companies who offer free internet services often tie that into 3rd party software that the user has no idea goes along with the wanted service. When you disable the addware the service no longer works. They might try telling us in advance their intentions and let us decide if all the hassle is worth the so-called free service. Not to mention identifying the software so we don't disable it because we don't know its part of Microsoft's package. I would gladly pay for the service if I thought it would do any good. Alas I have no such faith, they'll only find another way around the so-called pop-up free pay service. Combine this with the fact that I have no trust whatsoever in Microsoft or the computer manufacturers. With Bush, Microsoft, The NSA and a host of others, we already are living with BIG Brother and most of us don't even know it.
You know what my favorite pop ups are....The ones that try to get us to buy software to stop annoying pop-ups. Isn't this the same thing as extortion? They harass us over and over in the hopes that we will in fact hire them to stop themselves and others. Does this actually ever work? Is there anyone out there who would actually pay someone to stop annoying them? I won't. There must be someone out there foolish enough to fall for this, if there isn't then how can these guys still be in business. If I find out that a company engages in this kind of business I would absolutely not buy anything from them, ever. What even upsets me more is the fact that Microsoft is one of the worst offenders. My kids like MSN, in order to get it you have to enable their software which bombards us with pop-ups, to the extent that sometimes the internet becomes virtually useless. We are restricted by not having access to high speed internet, rural area and all that. The pop-ups take so much resources, and take precedence over my efforts, that I am left waiting very long times to view the pages I want to see. Dealing with Spam was a joke in comparison, a simple change of e-mail address effectively stopped 98% of all the spam I was receiving (200- 300 spam e-mails daily). Admittedly, the fault for this lies with my family giving out the e-mail to every site they visited- they have learned the lesson. Adding to the problem is the fact that companies who offer free internet services often tie that into 3rd party software that the user has no idea goes along with the wanted service. When you disable the addware the service no longer works. They might try telling us in advance their intentions and let us decide if all the hassle is worth the so-called free service. Not to mention identifying the software so we don't disable it because we don't know its part of Microsoft's package. I would gladly pay for the service if I thought it would do any good. Alas I have no such faith, they'll only find another way around the so-called pop-up free pay service. Combine this with the fact that I have no trust whatsoever in Microsoft or the computer manufacturers. With Bush, Microsoft, The NSA and a host of others, we already are living with BIG Brother and most of us don't even know it.
# posted by Wil Smith : 12:40 p.m.
