Reply 40 of 61, by Jo22
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leonardo wrote on 2021-10-27, 06:57:It was quite common actually back in the early days. People know better now, but in many cases you only had a modem and no route […]
zyzzle wrote on 2021-10-27, 04:16:Nobody would be foolish enough to connect a PC directly to their cable modem without using a router. Or a least even Windows XP's "built-in" firewall.
It was quite common actually back in the early days. People know better now, but in many cases you only had a modem and no router… and the XP firewall was introduced in an update, a service pack if I recall - specifically because of all the trouble with people infecting their Win2K/XP installations.
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2021-10-27, 01:49:Quite preposterous, I must say. […]
cyclone3d wrote on 2021-10-26, 14:14:I did this experiment a few years ago just to see what would happen. Installed XP and then installed the hardware drivers. I did not install ANY MS updates on the machine and then hooked it directly up to my cable modem.
Within 15 minutes the computer had so much crap on it it was unusable... I didn't do anything except hook it up to the modem. Didn't open a browser or anything.
Quite preposterous, I must say.
Back in 2016, I performed major reinstall on all PCs in my home office --with Windows XP, of course. In any case, it was also the year where Microsoft stopped Windows XP updates, so none of my PCs was updated. Those PCs, of course, were to be used by my employees, so I used Windows HOSTS file to block unwanted websites. I also set the necessary policies, so that only admins can install anything. Autorun is also disabled to prevent thumb drive viruses. And the only Microsoft products used with those PCs are Microsoft Office, while things like Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer remained unused.
Now it's already five years, and none of the Windows XP PC has been infected by anything. If anything, it's the hardware that fails first, while the Windows XP itself remains strong. In fact, without Windows updates, those Windows XP remains as fast as they were after fresh install.
Now my daily driver is a Windows 7 PC. I started using it since 2020, which was coincident with the end of Microsoft support, in other words, no updates. And the Windows 7 PC does not suffer the typical slow down that comes with Windows updates. And no virus either.
Based on my experience, most infections come from user's stupidity, like my employees browsing suspicious websites then click 'Ok' or 'Yes' to download the p0rn (or what the believe to be p0rn). That's why I set the Windows in such way that only admins can install anything, while my employees always log in using non-admin accounts. The Windows HOSTS file is also set to block dangerous websites.
You’re right about some people being too careless online, but I myself had to go to many people to fix their issues with malware that made use of the plethora of remote vulnerabilities in Windows - some of which could already be taken advantage of during installation. Yes, if you have an older release of XP, you can literally infect your computer during setup if you also have a direct connection to the internet.
That's true, I witnessed this in ~2003/2004 when my father and me upgraded to XP from a 98SE PC.
The setup hasn't even completely finished when we saw this:
Source: https://images.app.goo.gl/iY6xSZY6nN8FVjPY6
And this happened not just once and just not on our PC(s).
Friends and colleagues asked for help a few times, too.
That's why I learned that safety/security is important for XP.
Sure, SP1 and SP2 (has better firewall that's on by default) did a lot to make XP more robust. Not to say SP3.
But XP has so many features compared to its predecessors that malware still has a chance to run on it and take advantage of these features.
Just think about it. Many simple 32-Bit applications still run from 98/2k/XP onwards.
And if the Windows Scripting Host (WSH) had been left activated by default.. Oh. My. God. 😰
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