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China Has a Massive Windows XP Problem
An anonymous reader writes "The Chinese are going to have a very, very hard time kicking the Windows XP habit. The deadline for the retirement of Microsoft's most successful operating system ever is eight months from tomorrow: April 8, 2014. That's the day when the Redmond, Wash. company is to deliver the last XP security update. According to analytics company Net Applications, 37.2% of the globe's personal computers ran Windows XP last month. If Microsoft's estimate of 1.4 billion Windows PCs worldwide is accurate, XP's share translates into nearly 570 million machines. In the U.S., 16.4% of all personal computers ran Windows XP in July, or about one in six, Net Applications' data showed. But in China, 72.1% of the country's computers relied on the soon-to-retire operating system last month, or nearly three out of every four systems."
But in China, 72.1% of the country's computers relied on the soon-to-retire operating system last month, or nearly three out of every four systems."
This is Slashdot. I think we can do the math on that one.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
What makes you think that isn't happening already?
Microsoft simply has no choice especially if it wants to protect its compatibility insurance with Windows Office. In reality its monopoly in Desktop Applications...Relies on on it being a Monopoly, and it has real competition. I have bought tablets, smartphones, rasberry pi, an Ouya replicating everything I do on a PC. At a fraction of the cost of a less desirable bottom end PC. Intel and Microsoft have been overcharging its hostages on massive gross profits of 70%(Its not working for Apple Macs either), and are finding it very difficult to adjust when its competitors with can produce devices like a Chromebook for $200 a Tablet for $100 a Smartphone for $100 a chromecast for $35. buying an *unpgrade* to the crippled version of Windows 8 at £99($150) is stupid.
The bottom line is any money they earn from cutting off their hostages from essential packages is a potential export to another platform.
I have three xp units left. We will migrate to Linux.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Does MS not realize how vividly anti-consumer this is? Even to non-tech types?
/no hate on Honda; just an example.
What if your auto dealership end-of-life'd your Honda Civic? And thereafter refused to service the vehicle? Would you buy another Honda, or start looking elsewhere for your next car?
And to keep our analogies clear, let's consider that an XP patch (of a security hole) is equivalent to a recall for a manufacturing defect that is fixed for free.
Does that mean we should all be using DOS?
No, but it means that people with a need for DOS should still be using DOS. In a lot of cases, only DOS supports legacy or hobbyist hardware that bit-bangs the parallel port. Likewise, the AC that you replied to has a need for Windows XP for much the same reason: to use hardware that lacks an NT 6 driver.
No there aren't. Extended support began 5 years ago. 5 years is long enough for even monolithic dinosaurs like government and hospitals to get their shit together to prepare for the inevitable. Except they did nothing and still expect everything. Bollocks to the lot of them.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Look at Ubuntu: They support standard releases for a year (they've reduced it) and LTS releases for 5 years. That means from the date of initial release. RHEL is 10 years of support for their 5 and 6 releases (7 for 3 and 4) and then you can buy 3 more years of support for extra money.
OS-X is a bit different in that Apple supports two version older than the current one. That in practice means about 3-4 years of support, but is harder to plan since you don't know how fast releases will come, you don't get a defined, guaranteed, cycle.
So... Where's the company that gives a much longer/better support cycle? Because I sure don't see it.
windows 7 is nearly as easy to pirate as windows xp was.... so it's pretty obvious what chinese users will do when the time comes.
Don't worry, Linux boxes are far from immune from them.
People here have been saying that for decades, but still there's no Linux malware.
Even when a Linux derivative (Android) is about to pass Windows' installed base, it still has less than 0.1% of the malware out there on Windows. You'd have to say this theory is thoroughly busted.,
Off course said theory isn't busted. It's not like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware doesn't exist, it's simply hardly worth the effort to focus on Linux.
On top of that, the typical/average Linux-user is much better informed about security issues than is the typical/average Windows-user (**). So making a website to trick people into clicking/downloading/running something malicious is more likely to work in the latter case.
Switch mom&pop to Linux and before you know it they'll be clicking the same links and the botnets will live happy ever after.
Linux might never see the sheer volume of malware that exists for Windows because it's "late in the game" and because simply put both the developers and the users have learnt quite a bit over the years making it harder for viruses etc to propagate.
(**: Apple used to be 'virus-free' too. As its user base is growing (and dare I say dumbing down?) there is an uptake on the amount of malware too...)
If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
Linux might never see the sheer volume of malware that exists for Windows because it's "late in the game" and because simply put both the developers and the users have learnt quite a bit over the years making it harder for viruses etc to propagate.
Thank you for not saying "virii". You've actually used the correct plural.
The main reason why Linux is more secure is history. Linux is descended from Unix, and Unix spent its formative years in University labs where students would routinely prank each other. Of necessity, Unix grew up with security being an issue almost from Day 1.
In contrast, Windows grew out of DOS. Unlike Unix, where people were sharing a computer and had to play nice together, DOS was an environment where you owned everything, lock, stock and barrel. The thrust of the design was on usability, not on security. As a result, several fundamental system components were designed insecure and it was difficult-to-impossible to retrofit security on them.
OMG are you REALLY gonna drag out the old "Its not the OS, its the kernel" bullshit? Really? because by that logic windows is 100% bug free as well since no bug that I know of attacks the WinNT kernel but the stuff above it as well.
I'm sorry dude but that bullshit won't fly, a kernel with nothing else is fricking worthless and every. single. mainstream. distro all come with the SAME APPS over and over AND OVER so that shit ain't gonna fly. Firefox, Chromium, Gimp, Libre office, you'll find those on pretty much every mainstream desktop distro there is so if any of those are pwned then yes Virginia Linux is pwned.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
What are you talking about?
Windows '9x grew out of DOS. Windows 7 grew out NT, which was most definitely designed with security in mind.
I would argue that "pure" NT is more secure than pre-selinux Linux or Unix. Selinux is something whose true security I have never been able to calculate. unlike NT or IBM's (mainframe) RACF, the rules and support mechanisms are hard to fathom. So hard, in fact, that a lot of people give up, switch it off, and thus defeat its purpose.
However, nothing runs "pure" NT. NT was forced to accept the Windows Gang of 3 core DLLs inherited from the DOS-based Windows predecessors, and they required wedging the security door open in order to remain backwards compatibility. Which is basically the same sort of problem as the Selinux complexity issue except that if you turn off Selinux, it's your own fault, not a core OS design decision.
You have enumerated and expanded on those precise problems and I can't state it any better. The only thing I can can is Who the $%@!! thought that a Web Browser needed to be (squeaky Steve Ballmer voice quote) "An Integral Part of Windows" as stated in the anti-trust trial. What actual advantage did it give? No other OS I know of puts the web browser code into the OS itself and I've yet to see any performance or capability advantages that Windows has over those other systems in that realm. Security holes, yes. Actual advantages, no.
That might have held water except that Android phones vastly outnumber Windows phones and certainly would be a sweet target for a virus.
Servers are also a sweet target and Linux has had Windows outnumbered there for quite some time.
I wouldn't claim there is no Linux malware or that there won't be more, but it is notably rare in spite of some of the sweetest targets out there running Linux.
Likewise, there exists malware for Apple, but not in proportion to it's popularity. It genuinely looks like Windows is a soft target even with the confounding factors accounted for.
Linux also isn't particularly late in the game. While ads were gushing about the upcoming Windows '95, I was installing SLS Linux.
The one thing that could screw that up is if a distro encourages new users to run as root so they can get the full 'Windows experience' they are used to.
Remember, until MS came along, getting a virus from email was only a running gag. The idea that it could actually happen was absurd.