“Add personal computers to the list of throwaways in the disposable society. On a recent Sunday morning when Lew Tucker’s Dell desktop computer was overrun by spyware and adware – stealth software that delivers intrusive advertising messages and even gathers data from the user’s machine – he did not simply get rid of the offending programs. He threw out the whole computer,” Matt Richtel and John Markoff report for The New York Times.

“Mr. Tucker, an Internet industry executive who holds a Ph.D. in computer science, decided that rather than take the time to remove the offending software, he would spend $400 on a new machine,” Richtel and Markoff report. “He is not alone in his surrender in the face of growing legions of digital pests, not only adware and spyware but computer viruses and other Internet-borne infections as well. Many PC owners are simply replacing embattled machines rather than fixing them.”

“‘I was spending time every week trying to keep the machine free of viruses and worms,’ said Mr. Tucker, a vice president of Salesforce.com, a Web services firm based here. ‘I was losing the battle. It was cheaper and faster to go to the store and buy a low-end PC.’ In the face of a constant stream of pop-up ads, malfunctioning programs and performance slowed to a crawl or a crash – the hallmarks of spyware and adware – throwing out a computer ‘is a rational response,’ said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a Washington-based research group that studies the Internet’s social impact,” Richtel and Markoff report.

“Terrelea Wong’s old computer now sits beside her sofa in the living room, unused, except as a makeshift table that holds a box of tissues,” Richtel and Markoff report. “Ms. Wong, a physician at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in South San Francisco, started getting a relentless stream of pop-up ads a year ago on her four-year-old Hewlett-Packard desktop computer. Often her entire screen would turn blue and urge her to ‘hit any key to continue.’ Sometimes the computer would freeze altogether. After putting up with the problem for months, Ms. Wong said she decided last November that rather than fix her PC, she would buy a new one. Succumbing to the seduction of all the new bells and whistles, she spent $3,000 on a new Apple laptop. She is instituting new rules to keep her home computer virus-free. ‘I’ve modified my behavior. I’m not letting my friends borrow my computer,’ she said, after speculating that the indiscriminate use of the Internet by her and her friends had led to the infection problems.”

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: No need to modify your behavior, Ms. Wong. You are a Mac user now, you surf with impunity. Note to Windows-only readers, you don’t have to spend $3,000 to get a Mac. Apple portable iBooks start at US$999 and Apple Macs start at US$499. But even $3,000 ends up being less expensive if you don’t have to throw out your computer and get a new one every six months.

Is it any wonder that Windows PC market share is so high and doesn’t match the fact that around 16 percent of computers that are actually being used by people are Macs?

Tossing a personal computer into the dumpster because it’s infested with malware and buying another Windows PC is not a “rational response.” Instead, getting a personal computer with a rock solid, secure operating system like Mac OS X would be the smart move.

We are relieved, though, to know that some people have finally figured out that dumpsters are the proper place for Windows PCs. Now, if they could just stop themselves from buying new garbage after they pitch the old garbage. The stupidity boggles the mind. Windows, even if it didn’t have a speck of malware, is still a poorly-designed, ugly, fake, wannabe Mac. Get the real thing, Windows-only folks. Get a Mac. You can thank us later.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
16-percent of computer users are unaffected by viruses, malware because they use Apple Macs – June 15, 2005
Hershey Chronicle: Now’s the time for Windows users to consider Apple’s ‘zero virus’ Mac – June 02, 2005
There are no viruses for Apple’s Mac OS X – May 13, 2005
If Mac OS X viruses increased 2000 percent, there’d still be zero Mac OS X viruses – March 29, 2005
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 21, 2003
New York Times: Mac OS X ‘much more secure than Windows XP’ – September 18, 2003