29 Reasons to Not Get Vista

Microsoft Windows Vista hits (assaults) consumers on 30 January 2007. Starting with New Years Day that gives you twenty nine days to think about the big mistake you're about to make.

Every day of January 2007 until Microsoft Windows Vista is released you can read yet another good reason why it's not a good idea to get it.

19 January 2007 Reason #19: Third party vendors.

Third party vendors - aka independent software vendors: the people who make software for your platform. The titles you will buy after purchasing your OS. If Microsoft are bad at writing secure software, these people are even worse.

Symantec's Greg Ahmad has seen a marked rise in the use of insecure and flawed ActiveX controls for Windows. And when he says marked he really means it.

From 2002 - 2005, ActiveX bugs never broke the 15 per year mark. The three in the first quarter of 2006 suggested a similar pace, but the second quarter saw nine, the third quarter 13, and the fourth, 26. The year's total of 51 was more than three times the norm.

Ahmad attributes the increase to an increasing number of third party vendors shipping insecure ActiveX controls and the availability of new security testing tools that make it a lot easier to find flaws.

It's possible the quality of third party code for Windows is no worse than before. But no matter which way you turn it, the overall quality is worse than people imagined. And they already imagined it to be pretty bad.

ActiveX is of course a Windows curse. It's used extensively in all Microsoft's web applications. The fact that ActiveX is flawed not only in its design but also in its implementation by third party vendors is considered a prime reason so many people abandoned Internet Explorer last year.

And it will hopefully be the reason even more people abandon Windows in 2007.