Imagine for a moment that the world’s most popular car had a flaw. Occasionally it would respond to a press on the brake pedal by accelerating until the ignition was turned off. Additionally, if the driver does something silly like park in a disabled space or run through a stop sign, the car develops a permanent flaw. It regularly slows down, always running at half the speed the driver wants. Regularly it just stops without warning and locks the brakes, so it cannot be pushed off the road. Sometimes the problem is fixed by re-starting the car, but mostly it stays where it stops until a mechanic comes and works on it.

The manufacturer of the car announces that any owner who desires to get the car fixed must go to a third party company and buy an additional part that can be fitted to the car by a mechanic. The part must be replaced every year, and the user can choose from several suppliers. The manufacturer will not be supplying the part.

Several years later the car manufacturer ships a new model, with almost the same problem. The solution is the same. By this time an entire industry has sprung up supplying reliability add-ons. Most make the car go slower, and over a few years cost almost as much as the car. At times the addon you bought will become unreliable, and you will by another one from a different supplier.

Millions of cars are now enduring this unreliability. Roads are choked will stalled cars. Drivers of other brands spend much of their time navigating around stalled cars. Accidents happen constantly, the driving experience has become a misery for all road users.

The most popular manufacturer launches a new model. It has most of the same problems. It is improved, but the improvements require the use of twice as much fuel as other brands, and still the reliability add-on is required for an annual fee.

The government intervenes. In a effort to solve the problem, they open a taxpayer funded hot-line to assist people to restart their stalled cars and advise on installation of the reliability component…

What is wrong with this picture?

The entire story is absolutely ridiculous for many reasons. but a few obvious ones are shown below:

Firstly the government and owners would demand that the manufacturer recall all the faulty cars and FIX them. If modifications are needed, the car manufacturer would be obliged to fit them at it’s expense.

Secondly, owners would not keep buying new models. there would be a mass exodus to other brands of car, and the most popular car company would be out of business in months.

Thirdly, owners of other brands of cars would raise a storm over the delays and accidents caused and would demand the removal of that model of car from the roads.

Now compare this story to the Windows Problem…

Microsoft created Windows to sit on top of MS-DOS, an operating system never designed for multi-user use. Security was locking up the computer at night. Then came networks. A group of PC’s accessed a server. The server was under lock and key, and may companies removed the floppy drives from their PC’s to prevent theft of data and loading of viruses.

Security came to Windows as an afterthought, and we are paying the price I described above. Windows computers run slowly because of anti-virus software. They become infected with viruses and spy-ware and slow down further. Owners lose money to scams and identity theft. Zombie Windows computers jam mail servers with spam, making use of the Internet a misery for everyone. Businesses lose millions of dollars to computer down time and clean-up efforts.

Microsoft, the manufacturer does little except promise that newer versions are better, for a fee. This leaves the clean-up to third parties who manufacture anti-virus software and Spam filters. Some governments including the Australian government set up taxpayer funded hot-lines and web sites to help Windows users clean up their systems.

Yet all the official channels, scary news stories and web sites offering advice almost never mention the real alternative…

Get rid of Windows.

Put Linux on your PC, or switch to a Mac. No operating system is totally secure, but both Linux and OS-X are quite secure.

Linux has the added advantage of running on your existing PC hardware, either sharing with Windows or replacing it totally. If you try a Linux distribution like Mint, Ubuntu or PCLinux you can run it as a live CD without affecting your current Windows install to see if everything works. It is also free and comes with almost all the software you need pre-installed.

A few governments are replacing Windows with Linux in government departments. Google has removed Windows from the desktop options of new employees. Their choice now is Mac or Linux. Yet none of these organizations will just come out and tell the public that there is a better solution than living with Microsoft Windows. Why? Money. But that is another story.

How did we get here?

Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, and used that power and a lot of money to force computer manufacturers to pay for MS-DOS and then Windows on every computer shipped even if Windows was not installed. Since Windows IS computing to most people, the manufacturers made sure they stayed in the good graces of Microsoft. Because of this monopoly position, manufacturers of hardware are forced to develop drivers and tools for their hardware on Windows first. Software developers who want to sell must consider that Windows is 97% of the market and write for it.

Today, every computer in a computer store will be running Windows. People do not know they have a choice. It is time for companies governments and schools to realize that it is in everyone’s best interests to be made aware of the options. Windows is improving, and hardware drivers  for devices like TV tuners and mobile phones are a problem for Linux. Linux is improving to. many distributions are on six month release cycles and every version is free and  better than the last one.

Thanks to voidstern, Glenn Edelstone, aj82, Ozjimbob and Andrew Mason for Creative Commons images from Flickr