First of all Microsoft is a monopoly. When you go to Best Buy to purchase a computer, you are never given the choice of buying a computer without paying for the Microsoft software. If Microsoft was not a monopoly consumers would be given this choice. People might want to save some bucks and purchase a Linux computer saving the money Microsoft charges for every computer sold, but people are never given this option at the stores.
I will admit that I usually use a Microsoft computer, but this is not because Microsoft is better. Microsoft is easier than Linux because it has much greater market share and this forces third parties to write software for Microsoft and then later maybe write the software for Linux. Many third parties refuse to support Linux because of its lack of market share.
And then my computer gets this Google redirection virus, so I hand $50 to Norton to make it go away. But their software will only stop new viruses and my $50 will not stop viruses that are already there.
So I try to install service pack three hoping this will solve the redirection problem, but this refuses to install because of some strange error, and when I come back to the computer Norton wants to reboot.
So Norton reboots my computer while my computer is telling me to let it reinstall the old service pack, and upon reboot I am faced with the blue screen of death.
Now I am really hating Microsoft and wondering why people are so stupid to use this idiotic product. I have been using this computer for years and there are all kinds of files that I did not want to lose and who does backups anyway? And now without an operating system the only way I know to back up is to use a Knoppix disk which takes me all kinds of time and aggravation.
And then after finally backing up the disk using Linux, I attempt to reinstall XP. This required booting into the recovery console and running chkdsk /r followed by several reinstalls and hoping and praying. And then finally after all kinds of irritation and aggravation and time XP is back to running.
I have another computer here running Debian. This computer came loaded with XP but it did not have the horsepower to run Microsoft's bloated software. So I erased XP and loaded Linux onto the hard drive and it purred like a kitten. This computer has been continually updating to the latest Debian testing version for at least 6-7 years. I would guess that the latest Microsoft version would not have a prayer of running on this machine.
And I have never encountered a virus using Linux. It is well known that Linux is much more secure than Microsoft.
And what if I had lost the restore CD? All the crap that MS uses to force people to pay for their software puts Microsoft at a huge disadvantage to Linux, but the market still insists on paying the Microsoft tax. Further the set up files in Microsoft are binary. The setup files in linux are text which is another huge major advantage Linux has over Microsoft.
Why do people insist on all this stress and extra expense? Why not Linux?