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Typical Windows User Patches Every 5 Days
CWmike writes "The typical home user running Windows faces the 'unreasonable' task of patching software an average of every five days, security research company Secunia said on Thursday. 'It's completely unreasonable to expect users to master so many different patch mechanisms and spend so much time patching,' said Thomas Kristensen, the company's CSO. The result: Few consumers devote the time and attention necessary to stay atop the patching job, which leaves them open to attack. Secunia says that of the users who ran the company's Personal Software Inspector in the last week of January, half had 66 or more programs from 22 or more different vendors on their machines. ... Secunia has published a white paper (PDF) that details its findings."
Since we have a "few" computers all around the house, it's pretty much every time I sit down to one I have to apply patches, and usually a reboot to boot. Sometimes, it's a rarely used computer that I grab (laptop) just to get a few quick things done, and it requires multiple iterations of patches and reboots. Sigh.
I find it exasperating that my experience is almost always, "apply these patches", and then you can do some work with Windows. The good news (for me), I'm finally migrating EVERYTHING (as in replacing with) Macs and Linux. Time and money, that's all it takes.
Interestingly the other day... I got in and was productive immediately on a Windows laptop. Wow! C'est vrai? And when I went to shut it down? "Please do not power down your computer. Windows is installing (3 of 10...) updates..." WTH?
patching for Windows is largely automated...
Heck, my Linux has patches every day and I kinda see that as a good thing.
This is my sig.
Funny--my Firefox updates when I start it up, my Flash and Java and Adobe Reader update essentially on their own, and Windows updates when I shut it down...Steam updates on its own...Trillian and uTorrent give me a button to push to update them...I'm pretty much a power user, but I've never been prompted to update something that was remotely confusing. As long as things that need updating have an easy button to push to do it for you, I'm happy--extra bonus points if there's a checkbox in the installer to choose between "update automatically" and "prompt annoyingly when an update is available"
I've owned a Droid phone for 5 days now. I've already had to "patch" two of the apps for it out of about 10 apps that I have on the phone.
By those standards I'd say MS is doing one hell of a fine job.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
We can manage all those patches for them!
Seriously, that is what this looks like to me. It is a load of bullshit over all. Reason being that few things actually need patches for security reasons. The OS, virus scanner, browser, browser plugins and so on sure. However a videogame? No probably not. Well guess what? Turns out most of the stuff that needs patching, patches itself. Windows downloads patches and applies them in the middle of the night. Firefox grabs new versions when you surf, and installs next time it starts up. Virus scanners update silently in the background all the time.
If people actually had to spend time managing patches on all their apps, sure ti might be a problem. However for the most part that isn't the case. In the default config most important apps update themselves.
My Ubuntu installation updates and patches way more often than my Windows installs do. Newsworthy? Didn't think so /.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Last year I bought for my mother a new computer, she is quite computer literate but I was shocked to find 3 months after purchasing that she has gotten into the habit of turning it on once a week just to give it an hour to "update itself". That was to allow her to spend 30mins every other week doing her online stuff..
I literally couldn't or didn't believe it, but then I actually was there one day and watched as all the mostly default installed apps when through their motions of requesting updates. It literally took about half an hour before to computer was usable without something prompting "Do you want to install this update..."!
In the end I removed some of the crap like Java and the HP printer updater, and told her to turn it on only ever other week for the updates!
Definitely there is some need to consolidate updates into one program..
Yes, because it's completely reasonable that the *monthly* patches my Mac at work gets 95% of the time require a restart. Why do iTunes or Safari need the system to be restarted? I'm only forced to reboot my Win7 machine due to patches... Hmm, I think once in the time I've had it.
And OS X requires me to put in my password in order to install patches, so it can't patch unattended, or in the background. It's a choice between delaying my work or delaying the patch. Most people are going to pick "delaying the patch," especially if they've got anything open. And that's how security starts to fall apart.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Windows can patch itself to hell. Firefox and Adobe too, for all I care -
AS LONG AS THEY DON'T INTERRUPT, STEAL MY FOCUS, PUT UP CRAP ERROR MESSAGES OR REBOOT WITHOUT ASKING!
There's a portable at home I open only on weekends. Want to guess what happens for the first 30 minutes after I turn it on? Yup. An unusable computer that's *updating* itself. Java. Adobe. Firefox. Firefox *add-ins", Windows, and possibly, the current timeline in which I exist.
Needless to say, ALL of these want me to agree/disagree, actually *view* their updates, click a modal dialog, or reboot - repeatedly. I really don't care if updates have to happen, BUT KEEP THEM OUT OF MY FACE.
And don't slow the computer to a crawl. If the update takes all day, do I care? Not if it doesn't interfere with me.
Computers exist to serve ME. Make the computer wait, NOT ME!
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I'm the guy in our household responsible for applying our patches, being an IT professional and all.
Since we have a "few" computers all around the house, it's pretty much every time I sit down to one I have to apply patches, and usually a reboot to boot. Sometimes, it's a rarely used computer that I grab (laptop) just to get a few quick things done, and it requires multiple iterations of patches and reboots. Sigh.
I'm the guy in our household responsible for applying our patches, being an part time Web Developer and all.
Since we have a "few" computers all around the house, I just set Windows Update to download and notify me when updates are available. Providing me convienence and still retaining the ability to opt to not to install a patch.
Since Win7 got installed on my desktop I rarely have to restart for 99.9% of all day to day tasks, but when something out of left field like patch time comes it's increased speed to the login screen makes it much seem less of a chore having to wait 5 minutes while my PC is being updated.
And on my gf's laptop with Vista the reboots are slightly more often and and take a little longer.
But then again I'm on the computer 12 hours out of the day, so 5-10 mins once a week for maintenance really seems to be a non issue.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
On a system like Ubuntu, running updates automatically in the background wouldn't be particularly dangerous. That way you only need to pay attention to the updater once every 6 months. After using Linux I don't understand how Windows users put up with the Microsoft updates that frequently fail to install, sometimes require multiple reboots and then still needing to update everything else manually.
Patches breaking things is a big deal. Nothing will convince users to never allow updates faster than having one break their system when they desperately need it to be working.
A close second is having MS sneak in user hostile changes under the guise of a critical security update. That makes it impossible to even convince users to "risk it" even for the really important updates.
Though even in the case of Debian, I'm a bit too paranoid to do updates by cron job, it's good enough that if I don't see any rending of garments on debian-security, I presume it's safe enough to try on one system. If nothing bad happens, the rest get updated right away.
After using Linux I don't understand how Windows users put up with the Microsoft updates that frequently fail to install, sometimes require multiple reboots and then still needing to update everything else manually.
Because none of those things are particularly accurate ?
1. updates that frequently fail to install: My friend's laptop constantly complains about needing ~44 critical updates, but any attempt to install them results in an instant "44 updates failed to install". On my laptop, luckily, most updates installed, but I always had 2 or 3 that wouldn't.
2. Multiple reboots: Install Windows XP (without any service packs) and try updating. Count the number of reboots. Try a similar test on any Linux distro (pick a CD as old as you want), notice how you only need to reboot once to have all of the updates apply.
3. Still needing to update anything else manually: Turn on a computer with Windows that hasn't been used in a year. Install all updates. Now go here: http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/. Notice how many installers you need to download and run manually. Start up any arbitrarily old Linux distro and run an update. Notice how everything is up to date (note: By default, most distros don't give you the newest version of most software, but this is intentional and can be worked around by using a distro that doesn't suck).
Well, installing an OS version first released 7-8 years ago may not be the best solution all around. Also, you can simply download the latest service pack, and start with that install first. Not being a troll here, simply that if I were to install Fedora Core 1, and update from there, I might experience a couple of pain points along the way. The real issue with windows, is most software isn't distributed by Microsoft, with Linux it's mostly from your distro. If you start installing software from outside what your distro's repositories come with, you will see similar issues. ex: updating VMWare Server after every single kernel update in the OS updates...
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
What?
Ubuntu (9.10 or 8.04) has constant updates and approximately once a month a kernel fix, which require a reboot. Some other patches has gotten my system into a state which require[1] reboot. You really need to pay attention much more often than "once every 6 months".
[1] The easiest and fastest option.