Disclaimer: I am not responsible for anyone who messes up their computer after reading this post. If you are someone who isn’t confident with computers, stop reading now.

It seems everytime I visit an electronic store such as Best Buy I see at least one person talking to an employee about what antivirus software is best for Windows. As an average user they are taught to fear for the safety of their bits and taught that Windows has some open door policy for attacks. The scariest part of this is that they buy this software without really looking deeper into why it exists. They figure it is an absolute necessity because everyone talks about it.

A lot of these people will end up on message boards throughout the internet stating the same thing: “My PC is so slow after only three months!!! VISTA SUCKS!” You would think it was some crazy epidemic; that Vista implodes (or explodes?) and becomes slow from too much use. At least I figure this is what some people think since most other material position in life has this characteristic.

The big thing these people don’t realize is that some software is worse than the viruses and spamware they thought it would block. Users across the globe install this software not realizing it leeches itself on tons of different events and processes on their systems. For instance, AVG will latch onto Internet Explorer to tell you whether or not links are safe! Thanks AVG for installing an inefficiency on my system! Similar software like Norton will attach itself to your email client to make sure that everything you do is virus free!

I have been antivirus and anti-spamware free for roughly seven years now. Once I gave up the idea that I needed extra protection I stopped having problems. Coincidental? I think not! This anti-* software is good for some things though: cleaning up a mess you make. So it stands that if you don’t make a mess, you won’t need the software.

I plead you to join the revolution. Educate yourself a little into how attacks happen and how you are protected by Vista itself (ie. don’t turn down UAC). Don’t click oddball links that promise you something and be concious when you are using the computer. Use things like common sense and good judgement. If a long lost buddy is sending you an email with a program in it, think twice about opening that attachment. Join the millions of people who don’t run anti-* software because they don’t need it. Join us in not dishing out millions of dollars to companies that “protect” us only to be strapped into their system.

IE8 Beta 2 is out! Here I am running it on Vista Ultimate X64:

Tonight I was tasked with the job of reinstalling Vista on my sister’s new Dell laptop. Why? Because for some odd reason, Dell doesn’t know how to install an operating system correctly and she was having constant problems. Anyways, after installing the OS (which took ~30 minutes, w00t), I ran Windows update. This, for the first time for me, decided to continually reboot the machine after it was “done” with the install.

Hmm. Well, I went into the extra options mode (F8 during Bios) and ran the Directory Services Restore / Repair Mode. This got me to a “Configuring updates” screen which was farther than before. After finishing the machine rebooted and kept restarting. So I did it again, and this time the updates were able to finish!

[b]Update (07/07/08):[/b] It started doing it again. After some tracking on the web I found out it has to do with an outdated driver that came with the Dell Vista install disc. Installing Vista SP1 did the trick, but to get there I had to put the drive into IDE mode (via the BIOS) so Windows could boot.