Cerebrus
Sat Jul 08 02:00:54 CDT 2006
JaR wrote:
> Here's an interesting take:
>
>
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/07/wga_disadvantage/
>
> --
> JaR
> MCNGP 22
> Here there be dragons
> Remove hat to reply
>From the article : "In April 2004, with much fanfare, Microsoft
announced a new program to protect the consumer from...well, from
themselves."
I wonder how MS can imagine that people would be fooled into believing
anything they say. I think they were afraid of the response, if they
told the world exactly what WGA was all about, and that its sole
purpose was to force people with unlicensed copies of the software to
purchase a licensed one. They rightly guessed that no one would bother
to download it.
I agree with JaR that this is definitely in the category of spyware.
Thankfully, I'm one of the clever users who simply refuse to use
Automatic updates, atleast in the "automatic mode". ;-)
I think MS needs to understand that piracy cannot be combated with
retrospective effect. By doing so, they risk alienating all their
(legitimate and illegitimate) users. They cannot be penalizing
"customers". They have to crackdown on the channels of distribution of
pirated software, the vendors and the distributors.
It would be much more suitable to direct their efforts in producing
un-crackable software whose serial numbers (or Keygens) are not
available freely on the internet.
And as usual they seem to have bungled even the WGA effort, what with
so many reports of false positives and false negatives.