Something of this large of a problem can’t just be individuals attempting malicousness. In such a scope the problem would not be so widespread. Indeed I suspect the previous poster has hit it on the head with the source of all that is to be protected and secured when preparing to surf the net.

For myself, in an attempt to stop throwing money down a hole for protection services, I went to linux. Much of the above posters reasons are at the core of the decision to do so. While I still have Microsucks products, they no longer see the web as a policy. Microsucks behaves well when not exposed to the internet. It stops all the bs in its tracks. Malware and spyware become an afterthought and not something to worry about anymore. It is certainly a way to secure the OS that works.

For a long time I used Firefox as a browser. Now everyone else is and malware and security issues are popping up as those that depended on IE as their breadbasket go towards the usage trend and follow with cracks on Firefox. With that in mind I have went towards obscurity for the browser as protection. Lesser known browsers have better security because not enough use them to make it worth attention by those that want to steal your data and “give you a little extra” you didn’t want, desire, or wish.

I suspect I am among those that are wising up and limiting my internet surfing to just those sites I am sure are safe in content. It is rare that I just go off to strange sites without using something that acts as armor without allowing attachments. As an example I am using a little known browser for linux called Amaya. It absolutely does not accept cookies. Any site that requires that acceptance I won’t go to.

Following the lead of Microsoft, practically overnight the whole damned Web started charging for everything imaginable — no penny was left untouched. And every company with a Web presence sold its soul to the crass commercialism, which crossed their palms with silver for every name, and email address the web site owners could provide.

It then became blatantly dishonest — swearing on every thing Holy that the Web site owners would rather sacrifice their first born male child than divulge any of a customer’s personal information to anyone else under the sun. Before they would betray your trust, they would submit to torture or worse, because (they assured us) they held our personal privacy to be the single most important thing in the universe. The only circumstance under which they would even remotely consider revealing the information of their customers or web site browsers would be that the individual himself, opted for and permitted such revelation.

They then insisted that in order to gain access to their web sites, you had to agree to “Terms and Conditions”, paramount of which was your agreement to permit them to sell your personal information to marketing agencies and other third parties who then used that information to flood cyber space with junk email to the point that it even awoke a sleeping Congress to the rife plague of spam which clogged our inboxes.

Furthermore, most people are convinced that the authors and inventors of adware and spyware are the same entities that sell the software programs which provide the necessary relief from such nuisances. The blatant invasion of one’s privacy by the Josef-Goebbels-inspired insistence on the placement of “cookies” (again, thanks to M$ and Billy and the Boyz) has turned a lot of people away from Internet use. People simply are not quite as stupid as the Rocket Scientists declare them to be. They might not be super-sharp, and it might take a while for something to sink in, but eventually even the less well-informed or computer literate can put two and two together and deduce that the reason given for “cookies” is so much bullshit, thus obviously a lie, and thus obviously the means by which even more unscrupulous men have invaded one’s privacy and has propelled the crime of identity theft into the stratosphere.

But eventually, the Internet will make a comeback. Open source software was the painfully slow beginning of the coming revolution in the manner in which the Web will be used. I predict that circumstances will reverse themselves: that the Web surfer will be in the position of requiring the compliance with Terms and Agreements which he, himself, sets down — in other words, before I venture onto your commercial web site, if you want my business you will agree to MY conditions — et cetera.

And those cartels will have lost so much money that they will be crawling over each other to please the surfer with generous inducements. Law makers will learn that it is not the PACs with wads of filthy lucre that help them to get elected, it is the citizen comparing notes with his fellow citizens in the open forum of the World Wide Web. It’s almost impossible to imagine, but Congressmen might actually find themselves forced to represent the will of their constituency!

In the meantime, one may expect the approaching decline and fall of the Microsoft Empire; one may anticipate the emergence of the Web as a wasteland; and the wise will be busily preparing for the renaissance. A renaissance of the people, for the people, and, well … etc.

I recommend that a person should project the future and plan for it, keeping in mind that it will not support the robber barons it has supported up till now.

DMCA laws aren’t working in favor of more internet connections. Products that might inspire someone to purchase a high speed connection to get, aren’t there or are being re-evaluated with the DMCA in mind. As less traffic becomes the normal, less need also results.

At the end is the prospect that new broadband lines aren’t going into the rural areas near fast enough to gain new users in massive amounts. There are still many places where in a neighborhood, one block may have this internet and yet several blocks away, it isn’t available for the purchasing. Prices for internet service in the US hasn’t followed that of the EU. Costs for hi speed access are far greater than in the EU. This has the effect of making customers ask themselves if they really want this service at such a high price.

In the news has been the likelyhood that the government may require the baby Bells to uncouple their phone service requirement to access ASDL broadband. At present you must carry phone service to have DSL and that adds another $30 dollars or so to the tab for ADSL per month. When you go to looking at a $75-$100 a month payment for internet access many decide that it isn’t worth the money and choose to live without such expense.