@JaCooP: That illustrates the problem of password reuse pretty well. The chance of a password being compromised approaches 100% with every additional site it's used on. Or, put another way, a password is only as secure as the weakest site you use it on.

@Rose Tyler: Not sure if you meant "you" as in myself specifically, or a more general "you" so I'll answer both. Personally, I use Linux as my primary OS, and I browse with FlashBlock plus NoScript with strict settings. I do almost no browsing in Windows, and my NoScript settings are even tighter there.

@FoxhoundZ: I'd say just keep the thing, there are enough fun (non-party) games to make it worth having around. When it's done well the remote+nunchuck control scheme is surprisingly awesome for games; Metroid Prime 3 is a good example, and you can get it cheap online. (You can also get all three if you can find a…

@Hasteur: Only holiday music I listen to by choice is Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Not listening to it right now, though; great stuff but there are only three Christmas-themed albums so I'd go insane listening to nothing else for a month.

@wild7s: There's typically been a pretty good mix of AV solutions used, though. There wasn't a single option that was so much better than the rest, so you didn't see a single solution almost unanimously suggested to others. That near-unanimous acclaim may come at a price if we end up with an AV monoculture.

I'll have to bookmark that password checker, it should do a good job of driving home the "longer password is a better password" point to people.

It's nice that you're trying to help do something about the spam, so good luck with that.

@Whitson Gordon: Yep, sometimes the stories make sitcom plots sound plausible. I hadn't seen the one you linked in the article before, but when I made that joke I was thinking about a similar story I'd heard before.

Just don't forget about that laptop you hid in the oven or you'll be very unhappy come dinnertime.

@Whitson Gordon: They needed it, considering how bad their security reputation has been for many, many years. They probably spent a fortune making it good enough to counter that image. It's a great piece of software that I hope spurs competition.

It actually worries me that MSE is probably too good. It's great that Microsoft has made a good scanner with an excellent record for catching threats, but the last thing Windows needs is an antivirus monoculture.

VOTE: VirtualBox

@bobkoure: You're right, email forgery is so simple it's not even funny. I used to get spam mail claiming it was from my own address because spammers were pulling contact info off of domain lookups and then faking emails from them.

@invisiblemonkey: What I usually do with the security question is pick or write something random, fill the answer box with gibberish, and then pretend it doesn't exist. They're a huge risk; why bother with a good password if somebody can look up your mother's maiden name to get into your account?

@Skychrono: I got the reference but got here too late to make any good jokes. Instead, I'll just provide a reference link for anyone that hasn't seen it before: [bash.org]

@st.michelle: Can't say I agree with you considering how much of a hassle returning products can be sometimes. I'd rather wait and be sure than deal with returning something because I changed my mind.

@Whitson Gordon: Skip links and go right for elinks, it's probably the best command line browsing experience available right now. It has some minimal javascript support to improve dealing with webpages that use it for things like form submission, so it works in places lynx and links2 will fail. Also has good xterm…

@Whitson Gordon: Wouldn't it be on the devs to make binaries for Mac?

@Scott Kidder: Thanks for the answer; I'll attach something to it for now and clear it again after everything dies down.

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