oeuvre wrote:

i love your netscape avatar

Aw thanks 😀 I actually got really frustrated at work and sat down to create it to get my mind off things, glad someone liked it. It was hard to get it down to <64KB but dropping half the frames did the trick without much compression 😀

DNSDies wrote:

There's actually a website I can't remember the name of that provides updates for deprecated OSes like XP who said they'll be supporting Windows 7 as well.

I read about it a week ago, and forgot to save the link and now I can't find it!

0patch, perhaps?

oeuvre wrote:

i love your netscape avatar

Me too! I wish Netscape was still around. (Actually, it is kinda still there, but it's Firefox, even though not much of the original code is still there).

On the subject, I think I'd move to... eeehh.. better not start it. Linux is also a good option.

But if you have to stay with Windows, you could try to squeeze every bit of Windows 7 until EOL. I do think that Windows 7 can still last a few years even without support and updates. Windows 10 is a pain in the ass to use for sure, but at some point you will need to upgrade. I have a Windows 10 VM that I keep just for web development testing on all major browsers + a few gaming stuff. I can't speak for yourself, but I think that for both W7 and W10 some advice on how to keep the system secure against all the malware/viruses that come from the Internet would be welcome to this topic and increase the lifespan of W7 as well.

IntMD wrote:

DNSDies wrote:

There's actually a website I can't remember the name of that provides updates for deprecated OSes like XP who said they'll be supporting Windows 7 as well.

I read about it a week ago, and forgot to save the link and now I can't find it!

0patch, perhaps?

That's it! Excellent!
I needed it for my new XP build.

appiah4 wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

i love your netscape avatar

Aw thanks 😀 I actually got really frustrated at work and sat down to create it to get my mind off things, glad someone liked it. It was hard to get it down to <64KB but dropping half the frames did the trick without much compression 😀

must admit, I usually watch it for a few seconds every time i see it, even back in the 90's is was fun to watch while waiting for pages to load on good old dial up. I'd say it was time well spent even if your employers wouldn't

imi wrote:

install Windows 98SE obviously.

😁 Why not.

On the thread subject, I use Linux for some time now but I've always been a MS/Win user from msdos to Win 7 but after buying and trying Win 8/8.1 and feeling like the "road" those/later versions seems were taking to stay "modern", for the same thread question I tried Linux; lightest GUIs (for example Lxde),only the apps needed and not the one I'd not care of like those cloud based assistant apps, useless gpu accelerated gfx effects, hundreds background memory consuming processes.. imho modern os sometimes feels more like a "web services collection" than an offline optimized os. Considering power/complexity of modern technology I'd expect everything to go as fast as msdos 5.0 on a Pentium 4, and instead everything felt so heavy and useless to me.
PC games are probably the turn point here; I'm talking about home-everyday-office oriented not-gaming setups and/or not needing specific industrial professional apps you'd probably need Win/Mac for but I understand people asking the thread question. The good point of linux is that some can have latest updates still deciding to use lighter updated/compatible configs like for ex. Lubuntu etc..after some time you may need to install a whole new distro version to stay updated with latest kernels but it's not a big problem. If new big sw or hw bugs are found like those modern cpu ones, it may be (or not obviously) released sometimes in future some way to compensate as much as possible on kernel level.
But on the other side if people are talking about "security/patches" subject nowdays, in the modern tech world, it would maybe need also to discuss about all the possible known/unknown hardware/drivers bugs, older online connecting bios, hundreds unused installed running apps, 24/7days online connected setups, modems/smartphones with its own oldest kernels/firmwares, never configured user administration rules, the whole world of web browsers becoming more like o.s. themself etc.. many of the modern hardware/software usual wanted 'features' if existed back in the 90's would have make much more people seriously discuss more on their concept themself.

Been using XP, 2000, 9x, etc. on various VMs and native hardware for years without issues. The key is common sense... don't do anything dumb or browse sketchy sites.

My work computer has been upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Enterprise. This works well enough that I usually forget that it's not good ol' Windows 7. And I like the backgrounds. 😀

At home, I "upgraded" 4 Core 2 Duo/Quad PCs from Windows 7 to Windows 10 "Pro". It has been a bad experience, not at all what I expected from my previous experiences with Professional editions of Windows. The taskbar malfunctions intermittently on the 3 PCs with old GPUs (ATI HD 4xxx and 3xxx). Some videos don't play. "Windows 10" drivers for my USB 3.0 cards won't install. Microsoft periodically adds unwanted applications to the Start Menu, treating my personal computer like their managed device. Windows Media Center is gone. The only good thing about the "upgrade" was the price. I've reverted 2 of these PCs to Windows 7 and will revert the other 2 when I have time. 😈

Long term, I'll be using Windows 7 until it's unsupported by all modern web browsers. After that, I'll reassess my options. Probably I'll dual-boot Windows 7 (for Flight Simulator X) and a beginner-friendly Linux distro (for web browsing).

EDIT
That new 16" MacBook Pro with the bright screen, loud speakers and non-sucky keyboard looks awfully enticing! I just wish its price weren't equal to 2 months' mortgage payments.

The problem with the "don't do anything dumb" or don't browse sketchy sites" advice is that with ads all sites are sketchy sites. If you are allowing ads and/or javascript, java, flash etc and you are not keeping your perimeter firewall up to date and your software firewall up to date then you are vulnerable no matter how l33t you are.

Also you may think you are unimportant and to a botnet you are but the botnet doesn't care and you'll be infected as part of the swarm and your info silently collected or sold for a potential ransomware victim.

DosFreak wrote:

The problem with the "don't do anything dumb" or don't browse sketchy sites" advice is that with ads all sites are sketchy sites. If you are allowing ads and/or javascript, java, flash etc and you are not keeping your perimeter firewall up to date and your software firewall up to date then you are vulnerable no matter how l33t you are.

Also you may think you are unimportant and to a botnet you are but the botnet doesn't care and you'll be infected as part of the swarm and your info silently collected or sold for a potential ransomware victim.

But before correctly discuss about all these technical modern online web programming languages/extensions related problems many (not here where there're many experts but out there the common "people") before and for thinking about security should start thinking more about how different computer/smartphone world and their usage are nowdays when compared to the 90's.
For example the whole long forgotten concept itself of an on-demand switching on or off the computer, connecting and disconnecting online, using apps you payed for when not freeware (for real) as fully functional offline boxes and not like online ads-centric cloud-centric sort-of-"free" services. The point is why and what and when people need from tech? Do they need everything all day long ready and running to be (not) used most of the time? Like many here, I'm old enough to compare the old 90's tech days with nowdays but the whole modern way of using the technology is completely taken to another road sometimes I can't believe myself, people walking, driving, (not) talking with people while looking at their portable displays, eating fast cold food while working at some bar at same time on their notebook, tablet, smartphone, wireless devices all connected and the same when back to the office. I think the average 90's win9x-only user seems had a more precise idea and control of what and when they needed technology to be useful; nowdays seems like every new features is "awesome just because is new and they say is cool" beside most probably didn't really need or knew about it the day before. And -obviously- everything is expected to be free.

Add a Pi-Hole to your network and set up a decent NAT Firewall. As long as you keep your Browser up to date you should be 99% safe, IMO.

I have to agree with DosFreak and appiah4. Both are very good advices. Except that it's kinda difficult to keep your browsers up to date when you are using retro OSes. Like it was mentioned to me before and somewhere in this forum, the most "updated" option for Win 9x would be roytam1's retrozilla browser and I believe it is nowhere near 99% safe yet. Or is it?

Still, his advice works for Win 7 anyway

Windows 10 Pro is pretty decent. There are a few questionable decisions (like app suggestions for Candy Crush etc.) but they're mostly optical annoyances or tiny background problems that can be fixed quickly.

What I always do when I install Windows 10 is use Winaero Tweaker afterwards and tick all the obvious boxes: Disable uploading updates to others (because I want my bandwidth for myself), Disable Telemetry, Disable Cortana, Disable Start Menu Suggestions.

I also install the subsystem for Linux and Winaero Tweaker can then put a right-click link to bash into the menus.
With that, I can use my Linux tools of choice (like grep, find and ssh) while still having access to Photoshop and Illustrator.

I would love to switch to Linux completely, but that's impossible in an advertising agency. I have access to it on our beefy corporate server, so that's fine for me - I'm not forgetting the skills from the Linux world. 😀

Regarding Windows 7: I don't use it on at all on my systems anymore. There's just no need for it. Everything that runs on 7 will also run on 10. I have a few XP and 98SE machines because some software depends on these specific versions. That's not the case for 7.

Maybe there will be a tweak like the PosReady hack for XP that gave us updates up until the start of this year if the demand is there.

IMO, retro OSes running on anything even close to period-correct hardware (i.e., not Win 95 on a Core 2 Quad) are going to struh-gle with the modern web. Doesn't matter if Chrome and Firefox release versions that actually would execute natively. If you've ever gone to a news site (tech news, world news, whatever) and had thirty advertisements onscreen and a silent video playing in the 80 pixels square left over, it's enough to bring a modern CPU down to its knees. WTF is a Pentium going to do with that? Keel over and die, probably...

Even blocking ads will only help so much. I looked at the skeleton layout of a few web pages with developer tools enabled and it made me light-headed. DIVs within DIVs for days.

cyclone3d wrote:

I did a fun little experiment a couple years ago. […]
Show full quote

I did a fun little experiment a couple years ago.

I installed XP on a machine and didn't update it or install any security software on it.

Hooked it up to my cable modem and let it sit there doing nothing.

Within about 15 minutes the system was hosed with viruses/malware.

I did something similar back when Win 2K was current. Built a test box with Win 2000 Pro, left it online overnight, was infected with Code Red the next morning.

Lesson: Don't do that. 🤣 Firewalls exist.

SirNickity wrote:

IMO, retro OSes running on anything even close to period-correct hardware (i.e., not Win 95 on a Core 2 Quad) are going to struh-gle with the modern web. Doesn't matter if Chrome and Firefox release versions that actually would execute natively. If you've ever gone to a news site (tech news, world news, whatever) and had thirty advertisements onscreen and a silent video playing in the 80 pixels square left over, it's enough to bring a modern CPU down to its knees. WTF is a Pentium going to do with that? Keel over and die, probably...

Even blocking ads will only help so much. I looked at the skeleton layout of a few web pages with developer tools enabled and it made me light-headed. DIVs within DIVs for days.

Some years ago I tried using latest possible browsers on the original 16 bit kernels of Win98/ME and I found some version of Opera 10.x was IMHO one of the "more" compatible and enough fast browser if the PC was fast itself (like a PIII/Athlon). But as said the compatibility depends of the web pages and many times there would be problems, not always "reading" the page but mostly using the web page features sometimes broken, sometimes crashed. Without jscripts, ads or whatever disabled it would speed up but loosing obviously even more of the web pages features.
For an hobby home test itself I was impressed like using some well known text-only based web browsers on a 386/486 computer nowdays but realistically in a office enviroment I can't see how it would be possible if anyone would use modern os/apps.
For security I remember in their days similar scenarios where just when connected there'd be problems but nowdays there would be msdos/win9x not-NT oriented o.s. risks out there online in a world of 64bit mostly linux (mobile) based devices?
But in that case I used some really good shareware firewalls software and modern external modem/firewall.

I remember I would run NETSTAT right after installing Windows 2000 and there would always be lots and lots attempted incoming connections.

SirNickity wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

I did a fun little experiment a couple years ago. […]
Show full quote

I did a fun little experiment a couple years ago.

I installed XP on a machine and didn't update it or install any security software on it.

Hooked it up to my cable modem and let it sit there doing nothing.

Within about 15 minutes the system was hosed with viruses/malware.

I did something similar back when Win 2K was current. Built a test box with Win 2000 Pro, left it online overnight, was infected with Code Red the next morning.

Lesson: Don't do that. 🤣 Firewalls exist.

code red, that was a fun one. i remember it took out our cisco adsl modem/router for a day or so.

DosFreak wrote:

The problem with the "don't do anything dumb" or don't browse sketchy sites" advice is that with ads all sites are sketchy sites. If you are allowing ads and/or javascript, java, flash etc and you are not keeping your perimeter firewall up to date and your software firewall up to date then you are vulnerable no matter how l33t you are.

Also you may think you are unimportant and to a botnet you are but the botnet doesn't care and you'll be infected as part of the swarm and your info silently collected or sold for a potential ransomware victim.

This is why DD-WRT exists.
Block things at the router before they even enter your network.