I am thinking, wouldn't it be a good idea if he also had a Linux computer running 24/7 protecting the computers from viruses , so he could "safely" run his XP Network ? I mean, he could run Nod32 for Linux on the "protection computer" . And also he could make another Linux computer running a hardware firewall distro. Anyway those are my thoughts.
wrote:I'd say that generally speaking, people just want their computer to work and be secure by default. That doesn't make them "stupid"
My comment about taking away user control "because users are stupid" was just a flippant way of characterizing the design philosophy behind modern OSes. I know most people aren't complete computer geeks and don't want to be, so they're happy to have somebody looking over their shoulder. For my own computer that type of design attitude bugs me though. For example, at one time I was trying to disable the UAC-style prompts in a recent Linux distro, and I couldn't believe how hard it was to find a straight answer on how to do it. Everybody who asked was just met with a chorus of lectures. When the answer was found, of course it was a cryptic process that wasn't exposed in the GUI, probably because they didn't want people doing it.
wrote:If you're surfing the internet on a Windows 98 computer for example using the latest patches getting infected is as simple as surfing the wrong page (maybe even just being connected to a network is enough too).
The 3 typical vulnerabilities on a home desktop PC are the web browser, an unfirewalled network, and careless installation of infected apps. But as long as those things are able to be addressed, then the underlying OS hardly matters. OS updates can rarely serve as a backstop for stuff that shouldn't get through in the first place, but that's about it.
Running as a restricted user can mitigate a lot, but I've only done that with kids.
Web browsers are definitely a security vulnerability, and if one can't secure the browser on their OS anymore, then that can be a problem. I've set up other people running Firefox with automatic updates.
For myself, I use an older version of PaleMoon with NoScript. The security problems with web browsers are a result of all the excessive scripting which every site has assumed the right to run freely on people's browsers. This is a situation which greatly annoys me, but 3/4 of the internet won't work anymore if you don't let them have free reign to run at least some of that junk. So when browsing sites I trust, I allow scripts, but I leave them blocked as much as possible.
It's a convenient problem for the software business. Turning the web browser into an ever expanding script processor maintains the need for everybody to keep upgrading just to use the internet, and to keep patching all the security vulnerabilities that will persist as a result of the complexity. This appears to mesh well with Microsoft's business model going forward.
I wouldn't mind browsing the web on 98 with an old version of Firefox as long as NoScript or an equivalent is installed. But I don't know how compatible any Win98 web browser is anymore with script-happy web sites.
I still use the internet with Firefox 5 on Win2k for some things, but it's not my casual machine so I only need it to be compatible with a few sites.
wrote:My comment about taking away user control "because users are stupid" was just a flippant way of characterizing the design philosophy behind modern OSes. I know most people aren't complete computer geeks and don't want to be, so they're happy to have somebody looking over their shoulder. For my own computer that type of design attitude bugs me though. For example, at one time I was trying to disable the UAC-style prompts in a recent Linux distro, and I couldn't believe how hard it was to find a straight answer on how to do it. Everybody who asked was just met with a chorus of lectures. When the answer was found, of course it was a cryptic process that wasn't exposed in the GUI, probably because they didn't want people doing it.
This sounds very annoying actually
For me the thing is that I think it's kinda ok if the OS is more automated, but I don't need to be spoonfed either 🤣
I'd rather have these things optional.
wrote:Discontinuation of support did not make any practical difference in anything
Actually it did.
When I'm doing a fresh XP install on a computer (and I still do that regularly), there are 3 types of tweaking which must afterwards be performed in order for the OS to operate appropriately; those pertaining to performance, those pertaining to security and those pertaining to functionality, and the three of them call for the "defusing" of the OS plus the use of choice third party software, software that may fail to even install without certain elements missing in bare bones XP that would have otherwise been available from a regular Windows update.
Such is the case of specific .NET distributions (affecting the GUI for Intel display drivers, inaccessible without it), a variety of dependencies preventing a variety of software from even starting (e.g. an older Angry Birds game a neighbor wanted installed) and even WMP11 and DirectX9 updates (affecting primarily rendering functionality in Media Player Classic); all of these having once been a click away, must now be searched for, downloaded and installed manually. Furthermore, throw in the necessary OS validation (again, that too is gone and must currently be handled with a hack), the process has become a tad more complicated and time consuming.
There's a couple of unofficial "Service Pack 4's" floating out there, but I'll have to do some testing before I can call it safe.
Yes, discontinuation is far from being the end of the world, but it does have consequences.
The 3 typical vulnerabilities on a home desktop PC are the web browser, an unfirewalled network, and careless installation of infected apps. But as long as those things are able to be addressed, then the underlying OS hardly matters. OS updates can rarely serve as a backstop for stuff that shouldn't get through in the first place, but that's about it.
Yeah, sorry, but here's news for you: hackers don't look for exploits in just the places you expect.
Your OS is still a security vulnerability even if you use a up to date web browser because the web browser relies on OS APIs to do stuff.
Firewalls are not foolproof, they can be misconfigured or be out of date with known security vulnerabilities.
Avoiding "infected apps" is a bit of a misnomer, as we all know a lot of file types that should not be able to execute code have had exploits where that happens.
Having an up to date OS heavily mitigates all those attack vectors. And a lot of others.
Don't get me wrong, use XP if you must, but realize it is a security risk and take serious steps to mitigate it.
Anything past XP/2003 is an inside job, so even if these modern Windows OS' are somewhat more resistant against hackers by default, the fact that they're designed for collecting your personal information and handing it over to third parties, completely invalidates the whole security argument for up-to-date OS' being safer.
wrote:Anything past XP/2003 is an inside job, so even if these modern Windows OS' are somewhat more resistant against hackers by default, the fact that they're designed for collecting your personal information and handing it over to third parties, completely invalidates the whole security argument for up-to-date OS' being safer.
Being secure against the people who wish to steal all your money is slightly more important than being secure against the people who wish to sell some of your information for advertising purposes.
They're the same people, and if you think that "advertising purposes" is all there is to it, you're in for a surprise.
wrote:They're the same people, and if you think that "advertising purposes" is all there is to it, you're in for a surprise.
No.
I like windows 7 and windows 8.1 (with Start8 start menu GUI mod) a lot more than windows XP. They feel a lot faster, especially when using an SSD (and I do love my SSDs). Just my 2 cents.
Weirdly enough, windows 10 feels slower than windows 8.1. I got a free win10 upgrade on my Asus transformer T100TAL, and the device is kind of lagy now. I haven't tried win10 on a proper fast machine yet and I won't until the first DX12 game I want to play comes out.
I see another Windows thread heading down the toilet and this trend is getting extremely tiresome.
If you want troubleshooting, I suggest a thread in Marvin instead of the Milliways soapbox.
The title of this topic just invites for people to write up their motivations one way or the other. Which is an endless debate of course.
Suppose this topic is lost already... Too bad, cause I used it as a notepad for XP technicalities.
--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul
wrote:The title of this topic just invites for people to write up their motivations one way or the other. Which is an endless debate of course.
Good point. Yeah this thread is done. If anyone wants to discuss XP problems, open a Marvin thread with a title that's more to the point.
