Oh goodness. There are some incorrect assumptions in that effort!
can't you post one thing without your Microsoft hatred showing through?
I'm a Windows user, I write about Windows systems for a living, I use mostly Microsoft products, I adviocate the use of built-in features such as the 'Camera and Scanner Wizard' and the 'CD burning Wizard' for preference over commercial software in most instances. There's no 'Microsoft hatred' involved in acknowledging that one particular piece of the software bundled is somewhat flawed.
If people don't use P2P software to download pirated music, movies, and software, and don't go around to hacker sites and such, they're unlikely to ever get spyware if they're also careful to not install every piece of crap they get sent over email or download somewhere (which a strict policy and education would help ensure).
the nastier and more extreme intruders are usually acquired in that fashion, but the vast majority of unwanted intruders are simple bandwidth leeching annoyances which get installed simply by viewing websites with systems which are not adequately secured. And the majority of systems sitting on Corporate desktops are just that - default installs, basically!
Your assumption that "every machine using IE is infested with spyware" would only hold ground if every website in existence tried to install spyware on your machine, something that's blatantly false.
Bung a default install of XP Pro on a system. Install all the 'security' updates. Then browse the web for a week, avoiding porn sites, warez sites and all the 'nasty' corners of the internet, doing such everyday stuff as reading news, checking eBay auctions, doing a bit of online shopping, reading Advertising supported websites etc. etc. All in Internet Explorer of course. you know the activity I mean - the sort of thing that just about every coerporate worker does in the boss's time!
Then run AdAware, Spybot, and Microsoft Anti Spyware Beta over the system and see what you find. Hundreds if not thousands of little leeching intruders, and more than likely the odd 'nastier' one in amongst them. All from simple browsing! Do the same in Firefox and the results will be quite different! It's simple observation, not product prejudice.
Your assumption that "smart" people mostly use Firefox is also completely unfounded. The figure can be easily reached by very carefully selecting the target audience of your polls and massaging the results.
No result massaging necessary. Compare the results of viewer/reader contributions to sites such as
this one to the results of similar website contributions by viewers/readers elsewhere. The assumption that aent' was being made is your own interpretation. The comment simply compared people from differing fields of activity.
I'd not like to see News article discussion descend into argument here. Considering that the comments I made constitute 'Microsoft hatred' is completely unwarranted.
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