I can't possibly express how much I hate computers.

[Dogg Thang]

Really. I hate them so much.

I have three computers in my life. One at work. Two at home, one of which is a laptop. The laptop is Vista, the others are XP. With the two XP machines, even with company virus protection and firewalls, there is a constant battle with malware, spyware, adware and whatever elseware there is. Yesterday, a USB key that people were using at work was found to be carrying a trojan.

Today, I got some command.exe malware on my home computer. I'm so used to this crap that I was seemingly able to destroy the bastard but it always takes time and I'm probably destroyong registry stuff, seeing as I actually know little about computers except how to delete ****.

It is a constant battle. And the only two times I have lost that battle has been as a direct result of Norton Antivirus, a cure that is far, far worse than the disease and something I'll never touch again.

My Vista laptop seems relatively malware free but has no end of other problems. Hard drive recently failed, Sony repaired it and gave it back absolutely loaded with bloatware. A ridiculous amount. I wiped it and tried to get rid of most of it but their poxy Norton trial rubbish is still in there. I removed it and there has been something constantly accessing my drive slowing things up - it turned out to be the Vista warning system that is telling me that I have blocked programmes at startup (I blocked 3 Norton startups even though they don't exist because I haven't managed to find out how to get rid of the instruction to look for them from the registry).

Even with that warning disabled, there is something in there doing something. Just working away, causing a stall every three seconds or so. And I can't for the life of me find what it is. Can't use Windows Media Player without it stuttering on that third second while the little drive access light turns on. Drives me absolutely nuts.

I hate, hate, hate computers. They have sucked so much time from my life trying to fix their crap.

Is there a computer anywhere on the face of this earth that works exactly as it should? Anywhere?

I hate them. That's all. Just hate. And, yes, I realise I'm writing this on one now.

[djjimbob]

All of the above keeps me in a job.

[Dogg Thang]

Well the money that's being made always gets me suspicious. I mean, the amount of viruses out there that seem to serve no actual purpose? After the Millennium Bug fiasco, I really can't help suspecting that there are divisions in these anti-virus companies creating all these viruses.

Where there's a lot of money to be made, there are people doing stuff they shouldn't and that one just makes too much sense to me.

[Vince]

Unfortunatly this is partly a Windows thing, and i'm not saying that because i hate Microsoft or anything, i actually quite like them, but because its the most popular OS and the nasty people out there like to target it. One way round this is to run Linux or get a Mac, although the problem with both of these options is that you will find there are programs you really want/need that only run on Windows.

Alternatively you could download virtual pc and run a vm on your OS which you use for daily tasks, installations etc to prevent your host OS from becoming infected.

[Dogg Thang]

Actually, I'd be very tempted by a Mac now and most of what I use works on a Mac. Although, many years ago I had an iMac and it was prone to crashes and using multiple programmes pretty much killed it. They don't bring the malware problems but are they really better?

[JP]

I hate, hate, hate computers. They have sucked so much time from my life trying to fix their crap.

Is there a computer anywhere on the face of this earth that works exactly as it should? Anywhere?

Computers are perfect, they only do what they are instructed to do by the software they are running.

Unfortunately, the software is programmed by people and as we all know, people are far from perfect so the software on them is always going to be broken in some way and that's why there is so much crap we have to put up with.

I was considering buying a lappy to replace my desktop as it's a few years old now and starting to show it's age. Mine is really only used for communication so I don't need anything special but I just don't know if I can be arsed with a bit of tech that will be just waiting for a fault to show up.

I think it's probably inevitable that things are going to go wrong with them sooner or later and you just got unlucky really early. Look at the fairly constant problems on here, there seems to be something almost permanently off kilter which either prevents people from logging on or people just aren't getting notifications.

[pentarou]

If you go for a Mac then you shouldn't have any problems with spyware / malware / viruses as they are incredibly rare. If there's anything windows specific that you really need then you can always install boot camp so you can have windows on there too.

[Dogg Thang]

Computers are perfect, they only do what they are instructed to do by the software they are running.

My hard drive failure disproves that. Computers are far from perfect. Even aside from hardware failures, computers are a mix of their hardware, BIOS and software. And that mix leaves a lot to go wrong. So I'm not buying your 'computers are perfect' thing.

[kryss]

The world should have switched to Psion palmtops. My 5mx was a fantastic piece of kit. 30 days of battery life on 2 AAs! No viruses! Switches on and is ready to run when you press the button!

Those were the days...

[Dogg Thang]

I had a Psion back in the day. Had a great hurdles game.

[belmondo]

I'll add another vote for a Mac. I have a G4 that I use for undemanding stuff (web, email, word processor) and it's fine. I apreciate the fast boot up and shut down and the complete lack of viruses and malware. Stress free computing.

Obviously if you get a current one it will be a lot more powerful than mine, and you can use Boot Camp or Parrallels if you still need Windows for anything.

[JP]

My hard drive failure disproves that. Computers are far from perfect. Even aside from hardware failures, computers are a mix of their hardware, BIOS and software. And that mix leaves a lot to go wrong. So I'm not buying your 'computers are perfect' thing.

Well everything is governed by the laws of physics so it wouldn't really be right to expect computers to be excused from those laws.

The hardware will be obliged to follow those laws and the software, whether it's the BIOS or any other software will only do what it's been programmed to do whether the programmer wanted it to or not.

But again, the hardware can only do what it's supposed to do. If a hard drive fails then it's down to those same laws and because the hardware has been designed and made that way whether it's intentional or not.

Your hard drive only what it could rather than it choosing to do it.

[Dogg Thang]

It really doesn't matter why they're all crap if you're trying to classify them as perfect. If they're crap because people programmed them that way, that still excludes them from the term 'perfect'.

[MJ]

My Dell Inspiron 6400 running XP MCE is protected by various pieces of freeware and I've never had any viruses or spyware in over two years of daily use.

[CMcK]

Go for an Intel based Mac. I was a long time MS user from DOS to Windows 2000. I detest using MS OSes now. They seem so clumsy. I still use XP at work and when I'm fixing other peoples computers so it's not like I'm out of practice. Just that OS X is a lot more straightforward. I think you learn to work around Windows but OS X does as you ask.

Also I use my computer for Folding@home so stability and reliability is important. Under Windows 2000 I could keep my system up for about two weeks before it started to get flaky.
Now with OS X the computer only gets rebooted after a system update that needs a reboot.