Slashdot Mirror
Google To Support Windows XP Longer Than Microsoft
An anonymous reader writes in that Google plans to support XP longer than Microsoft. "Microsoft will officially retire its Windows XP operating system early next year, but Google on Wednesday announced it will continue to support its Chrome browser for the platform through at least early 2015. The Mountain View, Calif., Web giant announced it will keep sending out updates and security patches to the Windows XP version of Google Chrome 'until at least April 2015.'"
Google To Support Windows XP Longer than Its Own Fucking Products
Really, who cares about this kind of marketing Gotcha stunt. It's for the likes of eweek and cnet to analyze.
Just let XP finally die...
Why? My retired parents have a Gateway PC that runs perfectly fine and runs XP perfectly fine. Doesn't crash, doesn't blue screen, they just turn it on and it works. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
The trouble is that unless it's going to stay disconnected from the internet, one day it's going to get owned, and then you'll need a upgrade plan and you won't be in any position to make a transition because your PC is toast.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
If I hadn't already commented, I'd give you +1 Funny for using the future tense when describe when the system is going to get owned.
These retired parents probably aren't playing massive online games, so approximately all of their online activity will be through the browser.
As long as the browser is a) up-to-date and b) not tightly coupled with the system shell, that's almost an up-to-date system as far as the internet is concerned. What I mean regarding coupling is that if Explorer gets exploited, the system is owned because Explorer the browser ~ Explorer the desktop ~ Explorer the file manager. If Chrome gets exploited, the worst that can happen is that web pages get messed with, not the system.
It would be hugely amusing if one of these projects announced (even in jest) that they were would continue to issue patches for XP after EOL.
If it ain't broke...
If it weren't broke, they wouldn't be getting new fixes every second Tuesday.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
1. Windows would still use IE6 (it still renders webpages, so it clearly ain't broken - hell, we could go back to mosaic with this)
Are you nuts? IE6 was utterly broken since the very beginning!!!
2. We wouldn't have spoked wheels (it's not like the original design of the wheel was broken)
The original wheel design was broken for the use the guy that invented the spoked wheels had in mind. He needed a big but lightweighted wheel, and solid wheels couldn't be properly used that way - so, it was broken! =P
3. Fiber internet connections wouldn't exist (did dial-up ever actually break?)
Are you kidding? I jumped out dial up in the very instant I could afford broadband! :-)
Constant "no carrier" breakouts, slow speed, busy lines... Dial up was used just because it was what we could afford in the time.
On the other hand...
I still have an old Athlon XP box here at my side for some retro-gaming, and guess what? It's running Windows XP. WIth all the security measures I implemented here to protect my inner network, the fact is that my XP box is secure as never it was before.
I simply don't have the slightest incentive to throw it away and waste more money on a "newer" box, as the current one is fullfilling perfectly the computational niche it plays now.
Of course I use another box to day to day computing (a Mac Mini), but why bother setting up a virtual machines if I can play my games perfectly on a 3GHz Athlon XP with a Soundblaster Audigy and an ATI Radeon 4670 with 1GB?
Until this machine is dead, I don't have a single unique reason to buy another (it handles the games I play, and that's all).
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Hell, if that's use the case, install GNU/Linux. Did that for lots of old folks at the community center who were in the same boat. Few, if any complaints. Wine can run most old programs -- Even re-united a guy with a few of his old DOS games via DOSBox. Most folks are surprised the system can actually run faster in most cases, and that it's free... So are the updates. "Why would anyone pay for Windows if this is free?" I just shrug. Beats the hell outta me. Going from XP to XFCE or Mint/Cinnamon is far less of a shock than Windows8 or Unity. Chrome and Firefox work the same.
Throw in a spare RAM sim from my junk cache to top it up and you're good to go for as long as the hard drive holds out -- Laying down a new format track gives 'em a bit more life, and in most cases I can leave the XP partition there for dual booting into if they really need to run windows for some odd reason afterwards.
Also, sure Chrome may be updated, but it talks to the OS and its that OS interface that'll get exploited through chrome whether the browser is up to date or not. Just ditch the OS, and learn your lesson: Don't use an OS you don't have the source for or be prepared for planned obsolescence.
Rubbish!
For any PC to get owned that is tucked behind a NAT router, it's the user that has to do something stupid first.
If all you ever do is use a web browser to go to well-known sites and you know how to read and interpret a URL, then unless one of those sites has been hacked and some malware has been injected into it, nothing will happen to you. In my experience in computer and Internet security, it's going to dodgy sites for pr0n or warez that opens the doors to something nasty.
Likewise for email - don't use a client like Outlook that has deep hooks into the OS, use a lighter client and always delete emails that are from sources you don't trust.
Security has very little to do with what's built into the OS, it is far more about educating users to understand what the likely attack vectors are and to moderate their own behaviours to mitigate their risk of being exposed to those vectors.
Windows 10 is great - I used it to download Linux.