Hacking exposed is better? All they do is give a brief description of something and show where you can download tools to aid you. All of these books are the same BS. And anything that tosses the H word is bound to be crap. If you've actually read them you'll notice that the first few books tottaly suck balls and are just basicly advertiseing their other books... the only ones worth a darn is linux and web-apps exposed. Besides maybe those two I just mentioned and maybe a thick 700 something page book on C++ I find PC books to be a waste of time (and money)...

I don't see why I should pay 30 to 70 $$$ for a stinking book like hacking exposed, yet alone the book along with those stupid CDs with an ass-hat who runs programs and tries to look young, hip, & cool while doing it.

But seriously, god forbid one of these books take the time to explain the concept of actually reversing someone else's software & makeing your own findings of flaws... but instead you'd be buying a big red book full of stuff thats months old, most of which you'd find posted up on some software-bug and vulnerability archives anywhere from one week to nearly half a year before books like that even manage to be placed on shelves. I am honestly amazed at how these people put securityfocus.com on a roll of toilet paper and call it a best selling book.