What Exactly Does “better” Mean, and Why You Should Always Give Context

I have noticed many times on the Internet, people will ask if A is better than B. However, they do not give any context of what they consider “better” to be.

Whenever someone asks me if A is better than B, I always ask them, “What exactly do you mean?”. This is so I can help them make an informed decision. Otherwise I am just guessing, and that will not be helpful to anyone.

Here is an example of someone asking if something is better without context.

A guy named Jeremy goes to a cellphone store and asks Greg the salesman, “Which phone is better to use?”.

Jeremy has not explained to Greg what his requirements are. He could be asking “Which phone is cheaper?”, “Which phone is the fastest?”, “Which phone has the most battery life?”, etc. You get the idea. His saying “better” does not give any context to Greg.

Now Greg proceeds to correctly ask Jeremy, “What are your specific requirements?”. Jeremy then responds saying he is looking for a phone that has a large screen and is not too slow. Now Greg has context – instead of just “better” – and he now can properly show Jeremy the phones that will meet his needs.

Now Jeremy leaves the store happy, since he was able to purchase the phone he wanted.

Something to keep in mind. When someone mentions “better”, that is just their opinion. It does not mean anything until you get their context, and even then, you still would have to agree with their reasons why A is better than B.

You can also have someone who does not care either way. In this case, “better” does not factor in for him.

In addition, you may have someone give their opinion that A is better than B. However, if there is ample, reliable evidence to prove that A is instead equal to B (e.g., scientific research done by two independent universities that came to the same conclusion using valid, reliable methods to test), then there is cause to not believe what the person said. It all comes down to using common sense.

Summary: It’s good practice to always add context when asking if A is “better” than B, otherwise you will have people misunderstand what you are asking and may (unintentionally) give you an answer that is not helpful.


Posted in Computers, General, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, Security, Shopping, Society, Software

Common Mistakes People Make when Researching Online

In this post, I will talk about common mistakes people make when using the Internet for research. The “research” could be anything from what phone to buy to fact-checking information you heard on the news.

I know this post is kinda long, but its hard to write short posts while giving detailed information.

Please note everything I say are my own opinions or things I have observed.

Only using social media as a source of information.

Social media (e.g., YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, Disqus) are very popular places to get information from others. You will find the users on social media have wildly varying opinions. Unfortunately, most of these answers (or videos in the case of YouTube) are given with little to no facts to back them up (a few do though).

In addition, social media tends to attract trolls who try to sow discord. Usually they gather like-minded minions who all-at-once gang up on someone they decide not to like that day. This wastes a researcher’s time, since he must filter out irrelevant posts.

Summary: Occasionally you will find a good user on social media with quality information that is not just an opinion, but from my experience most social media answers are quickly written and are of poor quality.

“Everyone says the same thing, so it must be true!”

This one is a very common mistake. I even fell into this “everyone else says it” trap when I was younger. This is a fallacy called “appeal to the popular”.

“Appealing to the popular” is when you decide something is true or false because everyone else thinks that way too. That is not doing real research. That is just being lazy and letting others do your thinking for you.

A lot of times the majority is not correct. How do you know that a few people didn’t give misinformation online a while back, and everyone else jumped on the “band wagon”, automatically believing what they were told and repeating the same to others?

This applies to people who look at the number of “up-votes” or “down-votes” to determine if an online comment is accurate. Comment voting systems seem like a good idea on paper, but in practice they cause people to believe (or disbelieve) information based upon other people’s opinions. A comment with a ton of up-votes does not make it correct, nor does a comment with tons of down-votes make it incorrect.

Summary: Facts are not made by consensus. Just because everyone agrees, does not mean it’s true. You must always use common sense and verify information you receive.

Blindly trusting information obtained on Wikipedia without verifying.

I’ve observed many people quoting Wikipedia like it’s the Bible and can give no wrong answers. I must disagree.

I have read things (e.g., health & politics) on Wikipedia that were at the very least biased and at worst propaganda. This is due to literally anyone being able to edit most articles on Wikipedia.

I had one Wikipedia article that made a bold claim, but when I clicked the link going to the supposed source of this information, the link didn’t even exist. Someone just made up stuff and gave a phony link to make it look good to people who didn’t bother to verify.

Another Wikipedia article I read made a health claim (I do not wish to get into specifics). However, when I did research on Google, I came across a reliable health website that not only contradicted Wikipedia, but showed that the wiki’s author was intentionally misleading people. Why do that with health-based information?

Even if the wiki’s author is telling the truth, a self-appointed “fact-checker” on Wikipedia may erase their edit due to a severe bias.

Summary: I find Wikipedia useful when it comes to topics such as PC/Console/Server technology or basic information about someone popular (e.g., their age & net worth). Anything else (e.g., politics, science, history, the Bible, etc.) tends to attract people with a major bias to intentionally give disinformation to others.

“Professionals (e.g., doctors, politicians, scientists) can be trusted to give accurate information on the Internet.”

Unfortunately, people who should “know the facts” don’t always know the facts. Sometimes they guess while claiming they “know for sure”, they may assume the information is correct (without verifying), or they make up information to support their agenda.

This means if you automatically believe information without verifying “because my doctor said so” or “my nice newscaster in a suit & tie said so”, you may find that the information was not as accurate as you thought and this may lead to trouble for you.

Summary: Always verify information you receive, even if it comes from a “trusted” source. That source may be giving accurate data, but you should still do your due diligence and verify.

Using “anecdotal evidence” as proof.

This is a logical fallacy known as “appeal to anecdote”. What exactly is “anecdotal evidence”? It is someone’s personal testimony of a particular event. It contains no scientific data, just someone’s word on a matter.

The Internet is full of people who give anecdotal testimonies as “proof” of their claims. Unless you were there with the person at the time of the event, or they present detailed evidence, there is no way to determine if they are accurately recalling the facts. This is assuming the person is telling the truth to begin with.

Here is an example. Let us say you go to a website to view information about the common cold. While on there, you decide to read the comment section.

A guy named Phil has posted a comment saying that he is “very healthy” and “has never caught a cold before”. Now personally I would say Phil is lying. Sure, there is a (very) small chance of his statement being true, but I would not bet on it.

After reading, you take Phil’s comment and start going around telling others that “there are people who can never get the common cold”. You would be committing the “appeal to anecdote” fallacy. You are saying something is true, because someone else claimed that is what happened to them.

Phil’s comment was not “proof” of anything. He presented no evidence of his claim. He could have had a cold (multiple times) and thought it was just “allergies”. If that is the case, he is relaying incorrect information based upon a bad assumption…and now you are relaying his bad information, based upon his bad assumption too. What a situation to be in!

That is why I always insist people verify information they receive online (when possible) and use common sense.


Posted in General, Internet and Servers

Several ‘no log’ VPN Providers Caught Keeping Logs

I have written before about being cautious concerning any VPN providers who claim they are not keeping logs.

Just this morning, I was sent an email concerning several VPN providers who had their data dumped onto the Internet, proving they had been keeping logs while claiming they do not keep logs.

This is more proof that you should never trust a “no logging” VPN service to not keep logs.

Now am I saying that using a paid VPN is useless? No, but you need to be careful which VPN service you are using. In my experience, very few are legitimate, and even the legitimate ones are probably logging enough data to eventually identify you.

VPN services are in it for the money and most will say anything (e.g., “no logs”) to make a quick buck. Not to mention they could be selling your user data on the side – a double-whammy.


Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Security, Software, VPN

Do You Really Need to Pay for Antivirus Software on Windows?

Quick Answer: No. Windows Defender offers decent protection while being free, conveniently updates via Windows Update, and is not a huge resource hog.

Long Answer:

Anti-virus software has been available for a long time. For years, people paid for virus protection via a subscription service.

Over the last 10 or so years, free anti-virus software such as Avast, Avira, Windows Defender, AVG, Malwarebytes (the free, non-premium version), etc. have taken a hold of the market. Now I have used all of the above-mentioned anti-viruses. They are all pretty good (AVG, for me, ran on the slow side), but my favorite of the bunch is Windows Defender.

Now I do not have fancy charts, data sheets, graphs, etc. to show the “awesomeness” of Windows Defender. What I can tell you is I am running it on several Windows boxes without any trouble or noticeable slowdown.

None of the boxes have had a successful virus intrusion – while running Windows Defender – for the past 3+ years. False positives for me are pretty much non-existent, and I do not have to think about updating Defender, since Windows Update takes care of that automatically.

Q: What advantage would a paid anti-virus software give me that a free one won’t?

A: Pretty much just support. No guarantee of getting support with free software, but with paid software they kind of have to give support, at least if they want to stay in business.

Everything else – including anti-virus definitions (updates) – are good with both paid and free software.

Q: Are there any open source anti-virus software out there for me to use?

A: The only one I would recommend is ClamAV. However, this is not a proper anti-virus solution for most people.

While ClamAV has a real-time scanner, it is not used by default, and it can make your computer run slow (even ClamAV’s own help documentation warns about this). It also has a minimal amount of definitions (from my experience, will catch almost nothing out-of-the-box), and has no graphical user interface for you to use (yes, you will be manually editing a configuration file with a text editor), and it will catch several false positives if you are not careful.

This is not a user-friendly software solution. It is geared towards servers and server administrators to set it up properly.

Q: Do any of the mentioned anti-virus software have any back-doors, spyware code, etc. in them?

A: I really do not know, but I would never discount the possibility. The only solution that should not have any “spy” code in it would be ClamAV, but as mentioned before, ClamAV is very non user-friendly and will cause headaches to people who do not know what they are doing.

Unfortunately, all the good free anti-virus software is closed-source. I can understand this, because no company wants their trade-secrets exposed to the entire world. This would not be good for business!

Also – just a quick note – I personally would avoid the Kaspersky anti-virus software. They are based in Russia, and I would not trust any Russian software on my computer. I have nothing against the Russian people themselves, I just don’t trust their government not to spy on me. Just a thought.


Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Operating Systems, Security, Software

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