increase in spam lately

[Christopher Pisz]

Is it just me or is there a very large increase of spam on this group? Any
reason why all the sudden? What can be done?

 

[coder]

Is it just me or is there a very large increase of spam on this group? Any
reason why all the sudden? What can be done?

All spam seems to be sent by those using Google Groups.

And despite repeated complaints, Google seems least interested to do
anything about it.

 

[Victor Bazarov]

All spam seems to be sent by those using Google Groups.

And despite repeated complaints, Google seems least interested to do
anything about it.

It's pointless to complain to them. They have their eyes set on the
World domination, on becoming the Microsoft of the Internet, to achieve
which they use the same strategies - the choice between getting their
profits and keeping individual consumers happy is not really a tough
one; making profit always wins. They are a public company after all
and the interests of their shareholders are above everything else.
In a few months you won't pay as much attention to spam any more; that
is in the human nature - adaptability - and that's why the googles and
the microsofts nowadays don't sweat the small stuff.

V

 

[Ioannis Gyftos]

Offtopic?

It's pointless to complain to them. They have their eyes set on the
World domination, on becoming the Microsoft of the Internet, to achieve
which they use the same strategies - the choice between getting their
profits and keeping individual consumers happy is not really a tough
one; making profit always wins. They are a public company after all
and the interests of their shareholders are above everything else.
In a few months you won't pay as much attention to spam any more; that
is in the human nature - adaptability - and that's why the googles and
the microsofts nowadays don't sweat the small stuff.

While I totally agree with you, sadly I am not aware of any viable
Google search engine alternative (one that does not use Google's/
Yahoo!'s/Ask's engine anyway). If anyone knows of any, I'd like to try
it out. (Microsoft, on the other hand, makes it so easy to stop using
Windows with Vista, I hear...)

Scroogle i often use, but I often need Google's cache (especially when
trying to get information and the company's proxy filters virtually
all forums as chat...)

 

[Victor Bazarov]

Offtopic?

Maybe. I didn't start it. I'm marking it as such.

While I totally agree with you, sadly I am not aware of any viable
Google search engine alternative (one that does not use Google's/
Yahoo!'s/Ask's engine anyway). If anyone knows of any, I'd like to try
it out. (Microsoft, on the other hand, makes it so easy to stop using
Windows with Vista, I hear...)

I've heard it since Windows 3.11. Every time there is a new OS from MS,
it's immediately put down by critics. And since very many folks are
actually users of MS OSes, everybody is a critic. Many competitors'
OSes were praised as "viable alternatives", yet, where are they? Linux
is slowly pushing Unix out, but not Windows. OS/2 is dead. Solaris?
Please! BeOS?...

Stopping using Windows is like stopping eating fast food. Easy? Sure.
But look at the US population, how many of them/us actually have? And
the MacDonald'ses of the high-tech industry are doing as well as ever.

Scroogle i often use, but I often need Google's cache (especially when
trying to get information and the company's proxy filters virtually
all forums as chat...)

<shrug> I am not saying Google isn't already dominating. I am saying
we should stop trying to get it to listen to us. Microsoft, Google,
Intel, GE, Time Warner, Exxon/Mobil, etc., are like weather. You can't
control it, you can only protect yourself from it, somewhat.

V

 

[Keith Willis]

Maybe. I didn't start it. I'm marking it as such.

Good move. I don't feel so guilty about jumping in now...

<shrug> I am not saying Google isn't already dominating. I am saying
we should stop trying to get it to listen to us. Microsoft, Google,
Intel, GE, Time Warner, Exxon/Mobil, etc., are like weather. You can't
control it, you can only protect yourself from it, somewhat.

Well 'protecting' myself from Intel involved buying a mobo which takes
AMD processors. And 'protecting' myself from Microsoft involved
installing Mandriva 2007.1, which worked first time straight from the
disk, and does everything I ever needed Windows for, and some.
Likewise 'protecting' myself from Google involved specifying a few
filters to strip out most Usenet posts originating from Google Groups.
On the other hand, I completely agree with the poster up-thread in
that I find Google indispensible _as a search engine_; in my
experience none of the others come close.

 

[Default User]

Is it just me or is there a very large increase of spam on this
group?

Not really. Apparently news.individual.net is doing a good filtering
job, which combined with my own robust filter set is catching most of
it.




Brian

 

[Ioannis Gyftos]

Maybe. I didn't start it. I'm marking it as such.

Eh, actually I was referring to my own post, apologies for not being
clear enough.

I've heard it since Windows 3.11. Every time there is a new OS from MS,
it's immediately put down by critics.

Actually yes. Because they are like beta versions, and you must wait
for a number of 'service packs' to make it as functional as the
previous version. Take Vista for example. You can do *less* stuff on
your computer than you could with XP. Not to mention, hardware and
software compatibility (with XP) is *worse* than Linux, which I find
quite ironic.

While I admit I liked new versions of Windows from 3.11 upto 98SE,
newer versions than that were annoying. WinME came out, they were
horrible so I sticked with 98SE. XP came out, I found it worse than
Win2k. (Not to mention the 64bit versions). Vista is out, I didn't
even try it (and won't), but I've read enough on the web to hate it.

In case you are wondering, currently I am using Ubuntu. I've had other
flavors of GNU/Linux before, but I find the user-friendliness a nice
balance. I am actually *happy* when new versions are out (6 month
intervals, mind you). Currently the only thing I can do in Windows
that I can't in Ubuntu, is using the USB-infrared to connect to my
mobile phone, which I use like twice a year. Yet Windows lacks
elemental functionality like SSH ?!

Linux is slowly pushing Unix out, but not Windows.

Based on my own experience, and given that quite a few of my friends
recently dumped Windows for Linux, so I wouldn't be so fast to say
that. Unix is dead now, I guess.

You can't control it, you can only protect yourself from it, somewhat.

Hehe, I like your analogy.

 

[Victor Bazarov]

[quoting me:]

Linux is slowly pushing Unix out, but not Windows.

Based on my own experience, and given that quite a few of my friends
recently dumped Windows for Linux, so I wouldn't be so fast to say
that. Unix is dead now, I guess.

You guess wrong. To judge by your friends, ask what they use at
work. If they don't use computers at work, then don't count them.

All over the corporate world Unix is very much alive (although Linux
is gaining slowly), but Windows is also ubiquitous. And I am not
really talking about POS machines in mom-and-pop auto repair shops,
I am talking large IT customers like GM, Boeing, banks, factories...
That's where the bulk of computer spending (including software) is.
That's who is often buying literally thousands of licenses of our
software at a time.

Switching customers like GM (or even any of its subdivisions) from
Unix to Windows is very tough. And if somewhere they have already
established a userbase on Windows, switching them to Linux is even
tougher, with all due respect to Linux's advantages.

V