Ya I used to buy into that idea about using vendor products with the rationale that "at very least they wouldn't want to get sued for negligence so they have to have some basic security in place" then that huge bug came out where you got root access in Azure if you simply didn't send an AuthN header.
"Yeah but you can sue" is not really that viable. How's that going for anybody? Not everyone can dedicate their time and savings to gambling on getting compensated. At the very least, the open source community is vigilant and quick to ostracize bad actors. Big tech companies get tax breaks to screw us over
I think it is worth mentioning here that Microsoft does not care about user privacy.
I don't know if this is because Microsoft took down the blog posts and press releases or because Google web search sucks now (different conversation) but I had trouble finding the source for Microsoft statement. I'm talking about the incident when Microsoft spied into a user's hotmail email contents.
> However, to determine the identity of the leaker, CNET reveals, Microsoft actually looked through the Hotmail email of a French blogger who was in contact with the leaker, and make available online early copies of Windows 7 and Windows 8, as well as means that allowed users to circumvent activations protection for Microsoft and Windows.
I wouldn't give Microsoft any benefit of the doubt. While I have utmost respect for the people (who I know and) who work there, the senior leadership has always been poopy at best. I would never trust a word they say.
You can use a commercial (paid-for) Linux distro if you really want the legal protections of being a customer, while staying with Free and Open Source software.
As Capricorn2481 points out though, suing isn't really on the cards for most individual.
