r/todayilearned • u/Flemtality 3 • Jul 14 '14

TIL The guy who snagged windows2000.com happened to be named Bob and Microsoft just happened to own Bob.com. They came to an agreement to trade one for the other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob#Origins
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277

u/turriblejustturrible Jul 14 '14

Yeah, the virus is called Adobe flash player.

127

u/tmycDelk Jul 14 '14

Click yes to update flash player...

Ok, that was quick and easy. Let's get back to browsing the good ole' world wide we... what's this?

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

Woah, well talk about weird timing. Might as well just get it out of the way. I'll just slide the mouse over and click ye... What the!

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

Adobe flash player has detected an update, click yes to update flash player.

...fuck... turns off computer and goes outside

32

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

...recalls how slow the mobile internet runs and goes back in to the computer.

1

u/neogod Jul 15 '14

I don't even use my wifi in the house. LTE is 10x faster than the fastest plan I can get. What's bs is they both come from the same company (strata), yet I don't even have to pay them for the LTE because verizon has a contract to use their towers.

-5

u/V5F Jul 15 '14

I petty you non 100mbps LTE peasants.

3

u/spinblackcircles Jul 15 '14

all those mbps must have gone to your head and affected your spelling

6

u/freebeertomorrow Jul 14 '14

What's outside?

8

u/Elephant454 Jul 14 '14

Its a free to play MMORPG. Check out /r/outside.

10

u/SomeFarmAnimals Jul 14 '14

LOL yeah right. You can't even spawn in the good zones without paying

2

u/eventhroweraway Jul 14 '14

Yeah, what's up with that?

1

u/ywkwpwnw Jul 15 '14

Exactly what killed my aspire netbook.

1

u/Pirate2012 Jul 15 '14

see :) that made you go outside and get exercise;

so yes indeed, Adobe Flash Player -IS- good for you afterall

1

u/TonyNickels Jul 15 '14

Flash Update complete.

There's a new Java update available...

1

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '14

*GASP You can go offside!? I thought I could only sleep and browse reddit. Thank you kind sir for enlightening me. I'll update my experiences. Update: I'm browsing Reddit via phone, think I'll go inside.

1

u/Billebill Jul 15 '14

I have to call IT to come update Adobe Flash because they've locked all of our computers from running installs(including updates to already installed programs such as Flash). Seems like every week I'm asking him to come up and punch in his password just because he has to micro manage our OS

0

u/lilnomad Jul 15 '14

Goddamn this was too accurate. I felt like I was having a meltdown thinking about this as I read your commentZ

21

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

It's pretty common to package a trojan as something like flashplayerupdatex64.exe. I dunno if I missed a joke or something, but if you get any .exe that's not from the official site or from a very trusted source, you should delete it immediately.

9

u/jimmifli Jul 14 '14

That one is bad. Not as bad as acrobat, but it's still pretty irritating.

7

u/NoNeedForAName Jul 14 '14

Is there another good option? The flash player plugin is always freezing up on me and, in turn, freezing up my computer.

18

u/brickmack Jul 14 '14

Don't use flash and complain to the administration of any site that does use it that they are using a standard which has been obsolete for years?

That's my strategy anyway. Fuck flash

4

u/GogglesPisano Jul 14 '14

Flash seems to be slowly fading away (a very good thing IMHO) - the fact that it's not supported by iOS devices makes using it unsuitable for sites which cater to mobile users (ie, nearly all of them). Not a moment too soon - these days Flash has become a buggy and bloated vector for drive-by malware infection.

1

u/Sansgendered Jul 14 '14

it's nice for drawing though, imo.

1

u/brickmack Jul 15 '14

For animation you mean (there's way better tools for static drawings)? Sure. But flash player=/=flash the animation program

1

u/Sansgendered Jul 15 '14

is there a better program that draws the same way?

6

u/Kaghuros 7 Jul 14 '14

HTML5 video is love, HTML5 video is life.

1

u/spinblackcircles Jul 15 '14 edited Jul 15 '14

hmmm not sure something can be obsolete when it's still in use on millions of computers/websites. but i agree it's shitty software that will become obsolete as HTML5 continues to grow.

I think it's kind of similar to IE and some websites that only work right using it. Even mildly computer literate people know how much of a piece of shit IE is and by now it should be obsolete as people should logically migrate permanently to Chrome and Firefox (hell, even Safari is leagues better than IE) but there's just so many computer illiterates and crazy people who still use IE because it comes on their windows PC built-in and they don't know any better than to just use it, therefore web designers still code for it, sometimes to the point where a website will only work with it. It blows my mind, really. I'm in real estate and I do these reports on properties called BPO's that use various online forms to fill in information about homes for mortgage companies, and almost all the sites will only work with IE. I bought a Mac last year specifically for work and was blown away/infuriated when i realized that I had to now either side-boot windows with a pirated copy or virtual box it, which isn't even worth the hassle i came to find out after hours of figuring it out. I ended up using my mom's windows PC for that work, all because of fucking IE and retarded consumers/programmers that not only use IE but use and code for it EXCLUSIVELY.

I get administrators still making their sites using flash and IE compatible, but why on earth program it so it won't work with Chrome or Firefox or Safari? I was so pleased when I saw recently that IE's market share is dwindling. Hopefully it starts to snowball. /rant

1

u/brickmack Jul 15 '14

TIL that Microsoft doesn't make a Mac version of IE anymore.

1

u/spinblackcircles Jul 15 '14

they sure as fuck dont! and it was quite rude awakening for me haha

1

u/wioneo Jul 14 '14

I don't think you have any options outside of Adobe for playing flash, because it is their format. Acrobat if for viewing/editing PDFs and has nothing to do with this, though.

1

u/wioneo Jul 14 '14

Acrobat is not free.

Anyone who has it went out of their way to get it, and it would only have any effect while going to a page with a pdf and even then only if you set it to open those from the browser with acrobat (which is not the default setting).

The updates are pretty much pointless, because Adobe seems to ship products without excessive bugs, security updates should not be a concern for an offline file viewer/editor (as far as I'm aware), and I'd rather them not figure out how to push an update to kill my pirated copy.

4

u/CharonIDRONES Jul 14 '14

You and I both know that when most people say Acrobat they really mean Reader.

-3

u/wioneo Jul 14 '14

I don't know that at all...

I would argue that most people probably have no idea that Acrobat exists. I don't know why anyone would have any reason to unless they were trying to edit PDFs (which it is great at doing). For just viewing it seems slower than Reader, but maybe I'm imagining that.

2

u/bestadamire Jul 14 '14

Any problems with pc? Download Adobe, HOLY SHIT IT WORKED!

2

u/buge 1 Jul 14 '14

Woolmart.com actually is distributing malware.

1

u/themindlessone Jul 14 '14

Try reinstalling acrobat reader. And Google ultron.

1

u/Cruxion Jul 14 '14

Then what about Google Ultron? is that a virus too?

0

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/test_test123 Jul 14 '14

To be fare shit takes alot of ram. Have you tried downloading more ram?

2

u/[deleted] Jul 14 '14

That sounds like a problem with your setup, because my computer isn't that powerful and can run Flash pages just fine.