Downloading Software Safely Is Nearly Impossible
The problem is much worse than this contrived 'I cant download PuTTY securely'. Lets choose an example, of which I have had my hands in with my tech support job.<p><i></i>*
Goal: "Download Firefox"<p>First, the user was using IE. And the user is not a tech savvy user (as in, cannot read words on the screen). Turns out, the user's computer was infested with spyware and garbageware. Mainly Conduit and others.<p>Evidently, user "searched" for firefox rather than follow my directions to type in the address bar <a href="https://www.mozilla.org" rel="nofollow">https://www.mozilla.org</a> . This behavior lead him here: <a href="http://firefox.en.softonic.com/" rel="nofollow">http://firefox.en.softonic.com/</a><p>Normally, I would use a remote support tool and just do the cleaning for the user. However, this client comes from another area in which we are not allowed to use the remote support tool.<p>In the end, I tried to have user uninstall the bad-firefox, and attempt to install the good, but the softonic installer installs a ton of crap everywhere. User got very frustrated and hung up when having him read the uninstall programs installed list.
<i></i>*<p>That is the danger to most users, running Windows.<p>EDIT: For the user whom penalized my comment score, why?