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drift1492 · Feb 7, 2006, 05:49 PM

Check this out:

http://news.com.com/2100-7350_3-6036...6290&subj=news

So now windows users have to pay 50 bucks to plug the gaping holes in their OS?

rickey939 · Feb 7, 2006, 05:50 PM

New Hotness!

drift1492 · Feb 7, 2006, 05:55 PM

Yeah, just think about what exactly this is. Its like Microsoft is saying " Well, we're sorry we can't protect your computer with JUST windows. Unless you buy this you'll have all sorts of problems"

It makes me want to punch something and I dont even have a PC anymore.

hickey · Feb 7, 2006, 07:04 PM

I wonder how long it will take for hackers to work around those anyway.

Krusty · Feb 8, 2006, 02:56 AM

.... and to think we have recurring discussions on this forum to debate the question "Is .Mac worth it ?" while Windows users will now get to debate whether or not to give M$ $50 extra smackers per year just to keep their machine from freaking out and going down in flames within 12 minutes of connecting to the internet. Well, with near market saturation and a 5yr-old OS, guess they gotta find any area for revenue growth that they can muster.

Man .... man .... that whole world of Windows really, truly sucks @$$ more and more with each passing month. Glad I jumped ship at home in '99 ... wish I could do the same at work.

aberdeenwriter · Feb 8, 2006, 03:20 AM

Apple executives at the Cupertino, CA headquarters busily work to find a way to emulate this brilliant scam by their dreaded competitor.

JoshuaZ · Feb 8, 2006, 05:55 AM

Originally Posted by aberdeenwriter

Apple executives at the Cupertino, CA headquarters busily work to find a way to emulate this brilliant scam by their dreaded competitor.

Dude, someone already brought up the .Mac thing.

Which reminds me, gotta renew .Mac for another year....

Peter · Feb 8, 2006, 06:54 AM

that'll encourage MS to fix the bugs in a timely manner.... :/

aberdeenwriter · Feb 8, 2006, 07:12 AM

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ

Dude, someone already brought up the .Mac thing.

Which reminds me, gotta renew .Mac for another year....

Does the ".Mac thing" mean that Apple is ripping people off selling them fixes that wouldn't be necessary if the OS were written correctly in the first place?

Or, does .Mac represent a different kind of scam?

I feel like a black dude going into the Korean neighborhood grocery store. I sorta need to buy from that store because they suit my needs but I feel a level of contempt based on what I perceive as the store owner looking at me as a sheep, a soft touch, a punk, a walking dollar sign...

TETENAL · Feb 8, 2006, 09:21 AM

Apple charged $99 for virus protection with .Mac. So Microsoft's $49.95 yearly fee seems cheap in comparison.

Silky Voice of The Gorn · Feb 8, 2006, 10:03 AM

Apple charged $99 EXTRA for Virex? I don' think so...

TETENAL · Feb 8, 2006, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by Silky Voice of The Gorn

Apple charged $99 EXTRA for Virex? I don' think so...

Did Virex come with Mac OS? No. Apple charged you extra $99 for .Mac.
Does virus protection come with Windows? No. Microsoft will charge you extra $49.95.

drift1492 · Feb 8, 2006, 11:02 AM

What is Virex?

Kevin · Feb 8, 2006, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Did Virex come with Mac OS? No. Apple charged you extra $99 for .Mac.
Does virus protection come with Windows? No. Microsoft will charge you extra $49.95.

I don't know many Mac users that need to use Virex. Don't know many that do.

Can't say the same about Windows users.

The Windozer · Feb 8, 2006, 01:29 PM

Strange. My PC has been on the internet for years, and it still hasn't been melted into metallic sludge by the innumerable virus attacks it no doubt has been subjected to. In fact, it works just fine. Oh, well.

Big Mac · Feb 8, 2006, 01:36 PM

Haha, now M$ has a profit incentive to make Windows malware an even bigger threat.

Weyland-Yutani · Feb 8, 2006, 01:45 PM

I ditched .Mac a while ago. Reasons being:

* I never needed to use Virex - value to me €0
* I couldn't use Backup.app to back up to .Mac because it doesn't support html proxies - value to me €0
* I already have a 100 MB free serverspace with speeds about 10x what .Mac offers - value to me €0
* I already have an email adress so another at .Mac is not necessary - value to me €0
* I only use on Mac so syncing through .Mac is unnecessary - value to me €0
* None of the app offers for two years on .Mac were useful to me - value €0
* iDisk has always been way too slow to be useful. Unfortunately. - value €0
* I can't think of one thing .Mac offered me that was worth anything for two whole years. They kept promising features, but nothing was delivered. == total value of .Mac to me €0

For ca €80 per year this was not worth it to me at all but I payed Apple €160. I was stupid, but I thought they'd offer some serious features for that kind of money annually.

.Mac is a scammy operation in the sense that they promise but do not deliver. It is what it is, a glorified internet harddisk with a few very basic services. Almost every ISP offers what they do so .Mac is mostly redundant.

IMO this Windows offering is very fair. Sure MS makes a crappy OS, but since people buy it they might as well buy a relatively cheap virus protection scheme for $50 a year. They'll need it more than most users need .Mac.

cheers

W-Y

Silky Voice of The Gorn · Feb 8, 2006, 01:51 PM

Originally Posted by TETENAL

Did Virex come with Mac OS? No. Apple charged you extra $99 for .Mac.
Does virus protection come with Windows? No. Microsoft will charge you extra $49.95.

Are you kidding?
Virex retails for about $40. If someone wanted it, they would buy it. No one with any sense would sign up for .mac *just* to get Virex. Apple threw it into .mac as a gimme.

turtle777 · Feb 8, 2006, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by Silky Voice of The Gorn

Apple threw it into .mac as a gimme.

Nope. Apple threw it in to lure switchers.

Jawbone54 · Feb 8, 2006, 03:59 PM

Originally Posted by what_the_heck

Nope. Apple threw it in to lure switchers.

Agreed.

Silky Voice of The Gorn · Feb 8, 2006, 05:38 PM

Of course it was a lure. My point stands, however.

Salty · Feb 8, 2006, 05:43 PM

.mac is just starting to be worth it, give it two years and you might actually have me seriously thinking of buying it

aberdeenwriter · Feb 9, 2006, 02:32 AM

Originally Posted by Salty

.mac is just starting to be worth it, give it two years and you might actually have me seriously thinking of buying it

By then it will be $199. And someone will get the bright idea of unleashing reasons we'll ALL NEED .Mac.

Watch.

Feb 9, 2006, 09:25 PM

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani

.Mac is a scammy operation in the sense that they promise but do not deliver. It is what it is, a glorified internet harddisk with a few very basic services. Almost every ISP offers what they do so .Mac is mostly redundant.

And Photoshop is a rip-off because GIMP can edit photos for free.

What Apple provides is internet services for those that don't have the time or want to learn to do it using other services.

Lots of services are cheaper, but no other service is as easy. There's nothing scammy about it. It's just not a service for geeks.

Silky Voice of The Gorn · Feb 9, 2006, 09:46 PM

I got a .mac email address when it first launched, and was free of course. When they went pay, my company paid for it. I don't work there anymore, so i'm sorta locked in (the world pretty much uses that address for me).

I use almost no .mac features, save one; Backup. Backup is darn good now, and I use it to offsite archive all my important files and ongoing coding projects. That alone is worth the price for me, even though I could set this up manually.

mduell · Feb 9, 2006, 09:53 PM

Have to? Hardly. MS is just adding another competitor to the anti-* market.
I think they'd offer it free if they could (viruses and spyware have to be costing them sales), but Symantec and friends would throw a fit with the DoJ.

I don't run anti-virus or anti-spyware or any of that other crap, I don't do stupid things on my computer, and I'm just fine.