In fact, several of my machines have been on the net 24/7 for a few years now. I honestly don't think that I am lucky, and I'm certainly not a security expert either. I do run *nix and DOS both of which have a decided advantage here. However, from talking to people, and reading on the net, it is clear that there are people who run XP and even the much maligned Vista, without any security problems whatsoever!
I went 13 years online without so much as getting a "virus found!" notification from my antivirus software. I run XP. My streak ended earlier this year, but the file was quarantined, so it didn't affect me.
I'm with you in not trusting Microsoft, and it is probably a safe bet to say that MS is generally "less" secure than some other OSs, but that does not mean that if you do it right it is not going to be as secure as it needs to be. In other words, completely functional.
Microsoft got religion about security in the mid 2000s. I want to say 2004 or so. If security is paramount, would you be better off running, say, Sun Solaris? Absolutely. But I administered several Windows systems for a few years where a single security violation would have gotten me fired. Along with my coworkers. I never got fired, and my old coworkers are still working there. So it's certainly possible to get acceptable security out of Windows, and there are people who have bet their careers on that, and won. At least so far.
Once Adobe gets religion about security, then we'll all be a lot better off. Apple is much more cavalier than they need to be, but ask 10 security professionals which software company causes them the most grief, and most of them will say Adobe. Maybe all 10.
If you're really paranoid, why not just switch to some open source system? Just get a run of the mill router for a firewall and forget about the anti-virus etc, etc. It's actually quite relaxing.
A router isn't a good substitute for antivirus software, but having one rather than relying solely on a firewall on the computer itself is a very good idea. It eliminates a number of possible problems. An Intel buffer overflow isn't going to accomplish anything on the ARM CPU in most routers, for example.
I guess this will drive you crazy, but another thing I've heard about modern Windows is that it never deletes anything. If it's true the hackers should have plenty of cache to download. I'm assuming that more than just one is attacking the machines.
By default, that's true of every operating system I can think of. Rather than deleting a file, they just mark the sectors as unread. That's a much simpler, faster process, and it's also what makes undelete programs possible. Even if you go and zero out the file yourself, it's possible to recover that data, but to do that reliably really requires physical access to the machine.
It seems like we're at a stalemate here. You want to believe the machines are being hacked. I've listed a handful of other possibilities that, in my experience administering Windows machines, are more likely. Especially considering that the library most likely is protected by at least one firewall.
The stakes for a library getting hacked are fairly high, since most of them possess at least a handful of books that would be very difficult and/or expensive to replace. So you want to keep hackers out of the card catalog. Otherwise a hacker will go check out a rare book, hack into the catalog, mark the book as returned, and next thing you know, that book's on eBay. And a library also doesn't want to risk liability for someone using their computers or network to download illegal material. So I'm willing to work under the assumption that a library has good computer help.
In reality, I don't like Microsoft because they stifle competition. They buy their competitors to do it. I read that they bought the company that used to make Grammatik and incorporated it's features into Word for Windows. The same source said that grammar checking hasn't improved since (1992). I find that easy to believe because whenever I use the feature on the new version of Word (hate the look and feel, btw), it points out all kinds of things that seem perfectly alright to me. My grammar is pretty good, so I think the computer is incorrect instead of me, except in cases where I typed a homonym.
I agree that they stifle competition. I'm not sure about Grammatik, but agree that MS Word's grammar checking abilities haven't really improved since 1992. That sounds about right. It's generally accepted that WordPerfect has better grammar checking, and always has. But even when you take works by professional writers and run them through a grammar checker, they'll flag things. The rules of language are a lot more subtle than the rules of math, which is why computers are much, much better at math than they are at grammar checking. Or anything else involving language.
I think it was Jerry Pournelle who once said something like once you write a million words and follow the advice of WordPerfect's grammar checker, then you've earned the right to ignore grammar checkers. I'm paraphrasing big-time. But there's your endorsement of WordPerfect's grammar checking, from someone who's published an awful lot of books.
WordPerfect lost the market share battle to Word a long, long time ago, for various reasons. Bundling Word into MS Office certainly contributed to it. But WordPerfect as an independent company was very slow getting a version for Windows out, and once they did, the early versions were slow and buggy. Then Novell bought them, and was very slow at fixing the problems, and then was late to market with a fully 32-bit version after Windows 95 came out. Lotus had exactly the same problems with 1-2-3, which contributed to Lotus 1-2-3 losing the spreadsheet war to Excel. So I'm less bitter about WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 than I am about, say, DR-DOS and Netscape, where Microsoft spared nothing when it came to dirty tricks.
But those who prefer WordPerfect are rabid about it, and it retains a cult following today.
I'm a disabled vet with a lot of issues (you're welcome for the less expensive gasoline, btw - it sure cost me a bundle), and I need twelve hours of sleep a day or I just lay around and never get out of the house because I feel so tired.
Thank you for your service.
I think you're imagining any hostility on my part. Aside from the statement that I'm not changing my posting style, there isn't any.
I misunderstood you and I apologize.
Actually what I wrote was that a G3 could run a web browser found on lowendmac that could view modern webpages (or modern webpage content - something like that), but that I thought it wouldn't be able to play video.
To be honest, it was awhile back that I found that program and it might not still be available. I can't even remember what it was called.
I wish you wouldn't tell people that I said things that I didn't, especially since you keep complaining that I am spreading misinformation.
Sounds like I misinterpreted you. You seemed to be arguing that a 15-year-old old Mac is better and more useful than a slightly dated PC, and this was the crux of your agument. If that wasn't what you intended to convey, then I apologize.
I remember several modern-ish browsers for the old ("Classic?") Mac OS. I think iCab may have been the name of one of them. And there may be someone doing a Firefox port. It's been 8 years since it was my job to keep up on things like that, so I haven't paid a lot of attention.
