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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.
I own and operate a movie theatre, and my digital projector runs on Windows XP, believe it or not. (The server that talks to it runs on Linux.)
In my case, this setup is not on the Internet; all of the gadgets in my projection room talk only between themselves, so there is no particular security concern in that regard. But I wonder how many other folks have very expensive hardware like this that will probably never be upgraded to run on anything other than XP.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
perhaps we'll see a Chinese mass migration to Linux.
Don't hold your breath. I went to a Linux User Group meeting in Shanghai a couple years ago, and more than half the people there were expat white guys. Linux has an astoundingly low adoption rate in China. You'd think that people that are at least nominally commies would more open to FOSS.
I still use Windows XP and Windows 2000. They were good operating systems and, from my perspective, Vista, 7, and 8 haven't brought anything to the table. Quite the opposite, in fact: I went full penguin after Vista came out. It was patently clear that Microsoft was going in a direction I didn't want to go.
Yes, but what of the botnets? Who will take care of them? Without care and feeding of ineffective security updates to make users believe they are safe from such things, the botnets will wither and die.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You mean the all so horrible instant search where I can start word and view files by subject in 1\9 of a second without a mouse?
You couldn't pay me to go back to XP style start menu! Yuck.
Some people are so stuburn and hate change so much they refuse to learn anything new including Windows 7 features as I am not referingto 8 at all.
http://saveie6.com/
I prefer Black Flag Linux. It only costs 35 dollars and a six pack to license.
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!"
China's whole tax system works on a printed documents called a fapiao (fa-piao).
Every company in China has at least one dedicated machine with a special dot matrix printer to print fapiaos.
The software to print fapiaos only runs on Windows XP.
It can not be understated how critical fapiaos are to China's tax system. Big companies use them to pay the 17% VAT (some services and logistics companies pay less than 17%). If you lose the fapiao you get from your supplier, you might as we have lost actual cash. You must have it to offset the VAT you owe. During your annual tax review, you must have fapiaos to keep your taxes low. These are so important, there is a booming business in faking fapiaos. This is mostly done through fake transactions. Faking the actual fapiao is not so easy these days. Each fapiao carries a unique number and can the traced.
If you go out to eat, you can demand a fapiao. For westerners, this can be submitted to reduce your taxes. The top tax rate is 45%, so fapiaos are very valuable. For local Chinese, they submit them as a business/company expense. For people working in restaurants, this is a source of extra cash. If a customer doesn't ask for a fapiao, the employees can print one anyway. On the black market, these can be sold for 5-10 cents on the dollar. The same applies to cab drivers. Many passengers don't take their receipt. The receipt is a valid fapiao that can be used to reduce taxes. The cab drivers will sell them for extra cash. Just ask. :)
Windows 95 used to do that and I forgot about that.
When I am on a Windows 7 if I am thinking of something I wrote 3 years ago I just hit th windows key and type acme sales 2010 and enter to find the documents. Beagle under Linux tried similiar functionalty.
I show all die hard XP users this and within 10 minutes they are hooked. I do not care about the menus as I am so hooked on instant search now that I cant live without it. Jumplists and aero snap make me a windows 7 diehard.
Sorry I lost faith in Linux after gnome 3. Windoes 8 might make me reconsider though :-)
Windows 7 for a crappy Windows OS really was the best version and to me even eclipsed XP.
http://saveie6.com/
In May, Panda Labs (not Express) published a study suggesting that 55% of computers in China are infected by malware. http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/half-chinas-computers-infected-malware-study-finds-1B8290982 I had the pleasure of cleaning up malware on friends' computers while living in China, back when XP was the dominant OS. Though my sample size was small, I believe the Panda Labs number comes much closer to reality than what is captured by the afterthought that is Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool. Popular programs like QQ are laden with security holes that essentially invite any hacker to take control of a PC. The end of XP updates may cause extra few million computers to be infected, but it will be a drop in the bucket compared to the true problem. My advice is- don't trust personal computers in China or email servers in China.
Stay skeptical, my friends.
Uhhh...you wanna explain how a million infected devices is 0.1% Miss AC? because i REALLY want to hear the logic hoops you pull out of your behind to explain the evidence away, i REALLY do.
Like it or not Android, which every Linux advocate has claimed as their own from day one, proves beyond a reasonable doubt what so many of us have said for so long...OSes are some of the most complex code ever written and because man is fallible there IS bugs which WILL be exploited once a target becomes big enough which tada! Is EXACTLY what happened when Linux on mobile went mainstream with Android.
So welcome to the club, the coffee is in the back, ignore the guy rocking in the corner as that is Mac who felt like you he had magic armor and then he got a beatdown from macDefender and Guardian and is still traumatized. I don't know what they did to him but considering he's been like that for awhile and keeps muttering "You shore are purty"? Probably best not to ask.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.