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More Than Half of PC Applications Installed Worldwide Are Out-of-Date (helpnetsecurity.com)

Posted by msmash on from the security-woes dept.

Avast's PC Trends Report 2019 found [PDF] that users are making themselves vulnerable by not implementing security patches and keeping outdated versions of popular applications on their PCs. From a news report: The applications where updates are most frequently neglected include Adobe Shockwave (96%), VLC Media Player (94%) and Skype (94%). The report, which uses anonymized and aggregated data from 163 million devices across the globe, also found that Windows 10 is now installed on 40% of all PCs globally, which is fast approaching the 43% share held by Windows 7. However, 15% of all Windows 7 users and 9% of all Windows 10 users worldwide are running older and no longer supported versions of their product, for example, the Windows 7 Release to Manufacturing version from 2009 or the Windows 10 Spring Creators Update from early 2017.

4 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Because upgrades are often crap by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Half the time the upgrade doesn't add any value for the user, so why upgrade? VLC is a great example, it pretty much just works and the updates only add support for very obscure stuff that most users don't care about.

    The real problem is that security fixes are not well communicated, and that sometimes abused as a way to get users to take user-hostile changes.

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    1. Re:Because upgrades are often crap by oogoliegoogolie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The real problem is that security fixes are not well communicated, and that sometimes abused as a way to get users to take user-hostile changes.

      Exactly! Most updates have replaced detailed release notes with ambiguous comments as such.
      "Fixed various bugs"
      "Fixes some other minor issues"
      "Other improvements and bug fixes"
      "Major improvements under the hood"
      "Improved security measures"
      "Improved wifi setup"

      Words like "improved, improvement,various, some" are ambiguous and/or subjective. Was a feature removed or added? Was functionality changed? When companies say improved, does that mean improved for me or for the company? Every bug-tracking software lets you create a list of the fixed bugs-export it, review it, edit it, then publish it! Usually when companies aren't explaining something it makes me wonder what are they hiding.

      WTF is with all this rapid-release crap? So many products have too many releases now. Don't push an update out just for typos other minor UI designs. Return to semi-annual major updates for everything except for critical security patches and major functionality issues.

  2. No kidding by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Avast's PC Trends Report 2019 found [PDF] that users are making themselves vulnerable by not implementing security patches and keeping outdated versions of popular applications on their PCs. From a news report:

    The applications where updates are most frequently neglected include Adobe Shockwave (96%), VLC Media Player (94%) and Skype (94%).

    There are a lot of applications that the newer versions are considerably worse. It's funny that they mention Skype. It worked much better and was more intuitive 10 years ago in comparison to what is currently available.

    I'm surprised that Shockwave is on the list. I didn't know that it was still in use.

  3. Way too many by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Software now adays seems to want to update every 6 hours.
    This is not surprising and prolly the reason for stuff like this.
    People should make stuff that doesn't require that many updates.

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