Hey guys, mind if I use my own computer?

These constant updates every time I turn on my computer are making me wonder whose machine it is anyway. Microsoft, Java, Real, Macaffee, HP, Apple, and half a dozen other denizens of cyberspace want to grab hold of my operating system every time I log on and tell me new updates are ready to download or install. I can only stall them off from their nagging for so long. I don't want most of them, and they all use the security scare to try to frighten me into letting them do whatever they want, for as long as they want, while I twiddle my thumbs or plod along side-by-side with my slowed-down system trying to do what I wanted to do when I logged on, while they tinker under the radar.

It's a little like driving with your hood up while your mechanic fiddles around in the engine compartment and won't ever let you start or operate your vehicle without him reaching back in to adjust some little frammis or kree. I hate it. I especially hate it when I'm trying to get on the net for some information, and here comes the danged popup nags again, despite my having turned off every automatic update option I can find. And when I do try to turn off any of the "security essentials" they have defined, ooh-ooh--ooh, can't do that! your computer may be at risk! flash-flash-flash.

So eventually I do take a look at what these guys want to install to make it all better, and often it's not that altruistic. Often it's a self-serving update for the company instead of something I need, like Microsoft's latest gimmick that they just want to check to make sure I'm running a genuine Windows operating system--are there non-genuine ones? What the heck else is there that could have taken over my XP I've run since I bought the machine, pray tell. Or Mcaffee insisting I "validate" my antivirus software or I can't use it till I do. Who do they think is using it, since I bought and paid for it, if not me?

Moreover, I've found that most of these wonderful free update packs come with clever little things attached that I have to opt out of manually or they'll install automatically alongside what I maybe do want. One package wanted to install a Google Toolbar in my browser, for instance. Phooey. I don't want another menu bar under everything else crowding my main window space even more like a permanent popup ad. When I want to use Google or Yahoo, I'll go to Google or Yahoo fast enough. I don't want them "available" staring at me in my Word screens or my Internet Explorer or Firefox screens or my media player screens too.

The latest Microsoft "update" wanted to put in their latest browser, which I don't want, and didn't make much announcement about their intentions. It just came through the same pipe as the little "Security Updates" that never seem to end--you know, the ones that scroll down page after page in your control panel's "installed programs" screens after the "real" software list?--, only this one was a mega-megabyte, fullfledged new edition of Internet Explorer that took over everything I was doing for about a half-hour while it infiltrated every aspect of my machine, putting in a browser with tabs that I found anything but intuitive. I had one heluva time pulling that one all out.

Maybe I have a distorted view of what I as an end user of software and hardware I purchase gives me the right to do. I like to think I can control what I do with my own stuff, and when I do it. They, on the other hand, seem to believe they still own everything and control everything forever, and I have only leased the right to use what they have licensed me to use under certain conditions, the main one being when they don't want to mess around with it. Whatever I want to do with it, as far as they're concerned, can wait. I understand their right to nag me till I buy their product for its full price, but after that, go nag someone else. I'll take my chances with the gremlins you keep trying to scare me will take over. They can't be any more bothersome than you have become.