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Comment by ballpark | Hacker News Reader

After not owning a dell for years, I just bought one for the kids to use shortly before the news of the security issue came last weekend. Frustrating!

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More ranting... When will computer manufacturers realize that people want quality, safe stuff, and actually try to compete with Apple?

If I wanted an Apple, I'd buy an Apple. We don't need more tivoized crippled laptops that so thin! and so… useless.

You're going to have to explain this - how are Macbooks tivoized or crippled?

I think Microsoft's Surface Book is a realization of that.

I've always been really happy with ASUS, their recent zenbooks are outstanding.

I'm happy with my zenbook hardware wise, but it still came with a bunch of crap installed. I only use my arch partition, but I think I'll wipe the windows partition it came with and do a fresh install if I get tempted to use windows for something. Microsoft is the one to blame for this situation really, they need to take responsibility for checking the security of all OEM installs prior to shipping.

The point of Microsoft Signature Edition was to sell PC's without bloatware and other manufacturer crap.

It hasn't really taken off, so it appears that people don't highly value such safety.

To appropriately market such PCs, you have to expose the ad-infested fraud that the standard BestBuy or Staples laptops are, and that is an uncomfortable position to be in for Microsoft. So no wonder Signature PCs didn't take off. It's kind of like advertising "Signature Boats", "Signature" because they have zero holes in them.

I think that's more an indicator that Microsoft stores don't account for a significant portion of sales.

Where is Dell|Asus|HP|Lenovo going to find the margin to charge to be able to afford the sorts of capital expenditures that Apple makes to provide better hardware? I'm sure that the PC people know how awful an experience their computers provide; but they're trapped in a very low margin commodity business.

Depending on how old your kids are, are they really going to be using it for anything that is at risk?

Edit: I'm not defending Dell in any way, but if they're watching youtube and browsing facebook, they'll probably be just fine.

I'm going to do my best and make sure that doesn't happen. The frustration lies in needing to remove the risks from the new computer.

anything at risk such as "browsing on the internet" and "install software"?

I think the point is that an adult mostly risks losing money from their bank account (assuming they do their banking online), credit card (if they buy anything online) or the like.

Having a compromised machine on your network serves as entrypoint. The machine may also be part of a botnet which could expose you to questioning or worse by the authorities if the botnet is used in an attack.

neither is something you'd want, even if the machine itself is not used for anything critical.

Browsing facebook has risks of its own; it's a prime target for inter-kid hacking.

Until your main laptop is unavailable for some reason, so you borrow the kids one to do that urgent bank transfer or buy something online. Hopefully at that point you'll notice the amount of adware and crapware hogging the laptop and compromising it's performance that the kids have just got used to, and realise something is wrong before handing over your bank details to the Russian mob.

They may use email. They may do that in an open wifi.

Email accounts are interesting for spammers. Reason enough to want working https.

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