How much abuse will you take from Microsoft?

Seriously, how many times must users and businesses be kicked in the face before they buy a clue? Before they realize that they don't have to stay in the abusive Microsoft relationship. The answer seems to be: an unlimited number of times.

Take, for example, Internet Explorer. In the latest bad news, the newest zero-day flaw in the Internet Explorer implementation of the Vector Markup Language has opened up a gaping wound in Windows. Through that wound, every kind of garbage imaginable -- bots, Trojan down-loaders, spyware, rootkits -- are pouring into Windows systems.

You think you're safe because you do all the right things in patching your systems? Think again, this hole exists even in fully-patched version of Windows XP SP2 running IE 6. Right now, this very moment, if you go to the wrong site with IE 6, your system is going to get as sick as a dog and You Can't Do Anything About It.

Well, actually, there is one thing you could do. You could switch from vermin-ridden Windows to a desktop Linux. For businesses, I recommend SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) 10. For home users, Ubuntu 6.06, SimplyMEPIS 6.0, Xandros 4, or Freespire are all excellent choices.