I’ve been using Mozilla’s free and open source Firefox browser for more than six years.

I started using it instead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, way back on the day that Firefox 1.0 was released.

Back then, I was a Windows user.

But I’ve been using [more...]

Some of us are old enough — and have been using computers long enough — that we remember a time when Microsoft didn’t exist yet.

A time when using a computer meant typing lines of code into a large data-processing contraption that punched rectangular holes into IBM cards — and each card held 80 characters of whatever program and data you were working on.

From non-MS OSes to MS-DOS to Apple to [more...]

Regular readers of this Journal know that I don’t trust my personal or confidential data to free “cloud” services like Facebook, MySpace, GMail or Hotmail.

One of the reasons why that is so is because they all have a vested interest in exploiting their users’ private information, so I can’t [more...]

With everything that you know about its lack of security, if you’re still choosing to use Windows, then you’re probably already familiar with the growing pile of third-party security applications that you have to find/buy/download/install/configure in order to try to plug your operating system’s countless security vulnerabilities.

But you may not know that Microsoft has just [more...]

You can trust Microsoft to you tell the truth about bot-infected computers:

“The U.S. has by far the highest number of bot-infected computers of any country in the world, with nearly four times as many infected PCs as the country in second place, Brazil, according to a new report by Microsoft.”

Of course, the software behemoth conveniently fails to mention that [more...]

Anyone who’s used one knows that USB flash drives are fast, ultra-portable, hold an incredible amount of data, and are very convenient to use.

For the past few months, I’ve carried a 4GB one that holds all of the data, tools and documents that I need and want to be able to access while I’m at work. When I was doing more tech support, I carried a [more...]

Regular readers of this Journal have seen me rant about it many times: The fact that nearly all of the viruses and other malware that you ever read or hear about affects only Windows users; yet the news coverage of all of those types of malware rarely mentions that fact.

They may call it “PC viruses and malware” — but really, it’s Windows viruses and malware.

All of that junk doesn’t affect [more...]

Almost 6 years ago, I began using Firefox, Mozilla’s free and open source Web browser in Windows, instead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Since July of 2006, I’ve been using Linux full-time intead of Windows, but I kept using Firefox as my Web browser.

Needless to say, I’ve had a lot of experience [more...]