This is FUD.

The difference between the '90s and now is that in the '90s Microsoft spread FUD against Linux, and now segments of the Linux community are spreading FUD against Microsoft. FUD is bad no matter who spreads it.

Curious about your feel on Google. Are they more, or less, likely to fleece end users as compared to MS?

I would say they are just as likely. I'd like to take a moment and point out that I see this response type way too often around here. Someone criticizes something and is almost always asked about why they aren't criticizing this other thing too. It's intellectually lazy and logically fallacious, as if when leveling justified ire on a person or company, you must then start listing every violator of the same type.

Sure. Though I wasn't meaning to to be lazy. I'd made the comparison of the two already.