Reply 40 of 49, by ph4nt0m
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wrote:They are actually trying to do you a favour by pointing out the obvious, this isn't someone being a killjoy, it is common sense. […]
wrote:wrote:No offence, but anyone accessing the Web with XP or older should be flogged. No matter which browser, that's just irresponsible.
No offense, but this is just stupid, stupid FUD.
They are actually trying to do you a favour by pointing out the obvious, this isn't someone being a killjoy, it is common sense.
Microsoft don't release security updates for fun, they create patches as vulnerabilities are discovered and stopped providing this service to regular XP users 5 years ago.
I've seen infected XP systems which visited a mainstream website where malware was contained in the adverts, anti-virus and malwarebytes didn't detect anything. XP is an open goal for exploits and people nonchalantly using vulnerable systems make their internal networks and the internet at large more dangerous for everyone else.wrote:No offence, but I use my Pentium III Tualatin running XP on the web every day, and so far I never caught a virus nor a malware. And yes, I scan it frequently and I find no threat, unless cookies are now considered malware. Just a quick swipe with Ccleaner and I get rid of them in a jiffy.
How are you certain you've never been infected with malware/viruses/trojans?
Are you watching all outbound traffic and fully understand what is creating it?Linux is free and far more secure. If you must use your classic hardware which can only run old MS operating systems on the web, multi-booting Linux for web browsing is a no brainer... or just keep your retro systems offline and safe from harm and use something more appropriate for the internet.
If a browser allows malware hidden in ads or other scripts, that's a problem in the browser, not the OS. XP has a built in firewall, though terribly limited in functionality, but it drops all incoming TCP connections at least by default. There have been no critical vulnerabilities found in the MS TCP/IP stack for a long time AFAIR. So, unless a user does something really stupid, it should be alright to surf the Net on XP. If paranoia prevails, one can always disable Java, JavaScript and Flash in any browser.
I admit Linux/FreeBSD/NetBSD/etc. do a much better job on older hardware, but they also have dropped or limited support for many architectures considered legacy. You can still compile whatever you need from the scratch, though it's a pain in the arse to compile, say, Firefox on a 486. The last time I did something like this, I launched a copy of it in a VM running on a home 12-core Xeon server, SSH to the VM, did the job and copied the files back, but that's a whole different story.