Sunday 16 October 2011

Rant ..... PCs Windows and Security on the Internet

Suddenly this week blogger images from blogspot.com became undisplayable on my PC. When I browsed Bols (Bell of Lost Souls)  website - no images, but images on From the Warp, but not on Admiral Drax or Fritz 40k and so on. Most blogger images hosted on http//*blogspot.com/* had disappeared. How or why, it was not clear. Artificer had installed nothing. The PC was protected by Kaspersky, and Windows defender and kept up to date on Windows 7 by automatic updates. Firefox was affected and so also was IE (exploder). The only thing that had preceded this loss of functionality was an update on windows - thank you Microsoft. Quickly the laptop was turned on. It was OK blog sites images were OK. Wait a minute, as it was shut down it installed some windows updates. Lo and behold the laptop had the same affliction once it was rebooted. Logically blogger.com was being blocked by some security change but what as the lone user had done nothing! Eventually a solution was realised by the humble user - help pages and requests for help rendered as much assistance as a mirage in the desert - set blogger.com to be a trusted site for Kaspersky. Ok, but why did windows update break the usability of blogger? Is it deniable collateral damage from the war for dominance between Google and Microsoft. Is it a bug in Kaspersky uncovered by the latest Microsoft updates. Actually here at Artificers Workshop we do not give a damn. If software houses had to pay compensation to consumers for their waste of consumers time as a consequence of their dysfunctional behaviour there would be a massive change in behaviour. My bill to Microsoft and Kaspersky for the time wasted by their incompetence is prepared. As users we need to campaign for a change in the law. If petrol companies sell petrol with too much water in it and it breaks engines they are liable. If software companies update software without explicit permission for each change that breaks the Internet for users they must be liable also.

 Back to Sister of Battle Command Squads :

 Work has progressed.

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