OSNews

Yeah, I think a lot of people don't know what spyware actually is. I mean, Photoshop could be spyware, running adobeloader.exe in the background and monitoring every site you visit, all the forms you entered,... and secretly uploading this to their servers. Information like this costs a lot of money. Unfortunetly the user behind the OS will always be the problem. Studies show that something like 60% of people would give out their passwords to get a free mp3 (or something along those lines). Couple this with phishing and all the other crap that's been out and you get to the task of not only making the OS/app secure, but to secure the user from himself. There are a lot of people that don't even know what spyware, virus or trojan actually are (and they shouldn't). The browser could literally ask you "do you want to install this virus from GATOR Inc.?" and I bet a lot of people would even reply with yes.

Then of course is the root of (most of) these problems. The porn, cracks and other "not so legal" sites. If people would actually use the net for something useful, most of these problems wouldn't even exist.¸I don't think spyware and other crap is really the developer's fault - IMO it's mostly the user's. The developer should make sure there are none buffer overruns possible, a decent firewall installed (and enabled by default) and a better overall OS architecture model so it's not easy exploitable.
The rest is up to the user. If he chooses to open an attachment from a non reliable source, then there hardly anything to stop him. Yes, the net sure isn't what it used to be.