And how much more will you complain about Apple's prices after they extensively re-test all their components, just so their suppliers don't have to stand behind the claims they make for their components reliability?
Well where is their responsibility to the customer? "Oh it's not our fault, it's our supplier." Well why the hell do they continue to fuck their customers over by using that supplier? They had a problem with 2008 systems (first year failures too) and now they're having it with 2011 systems and they still use nVidia GPUs, why?!
One of the primary selling points is their longevity.
While I agree they do tend to last - though I'm sure there's anecdotal evidence to support that both ways just like any other computer manufacturer - they go out of support quite quickly. My 2010 MBP is still going great but OS support for it will likely be dropped in the next release, Mountain Lion dropped support even for some systems just over 3 years old.
That is if something is broken, handling a new threat is not something being broken. If your airbags don't work properly then it will be recalled for repair but they don't add airbags to a car that doesn't have them. What new features were added to the Opel by the manufacturer for free over its lifetime? None. But Microsoft added things like WPA support, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, Windows Firewall, IPv6, WPS, Peer-to-Peer Networking, etc... for free, these are features it simply did not have but were added.
Car manufacturers offer firmware upgrades when they are needed with yearly maintenance.
And has this happened with the Opel? The whole point of this is that they are very different things and are not analogous for the purpose of this discussion. People don't expect free updates post-purchase that increase security and stability, they do expect it for their operating system.
It doesn't matter that the OS was insecure as released or is no longer being patched.
This is nothing to do with the security of the OS at all.
When a naïve user is tricked into installing something bad with admin rights, all fingers will be pointed at Microsoft. While MS can't do anything about a PEBCAK problem, at least the extra year of support will postpone that fecal-matter-meets-rotary-air-impeller event.
How? Whether they patch security holes makes no difference because the issue you describe is nothing to do with security holes.
Rubbish, I'll try to put it another way to be clearer: What security and accident resilience features were developed and delivered for free by Opel for your father's car after purchase?
If you discount the fact that these require workers on salary that needs to be paid and spare parts that need to be mined, refined and built, yes, you could call the actual support "free".
Everything is free if you discount the fact that it has a cost, the software maintenance requires workers on salary that need to be paid and bandwidth and infrastructure to send out patches. So the answer is no, they haven't been out to increase the security and resilience of the vehicle for free.
Car security becomes noticeably better. Cars become easier to drive and more resilient to accidents even if they do occur.
And has Opel ever sent updates out to maintain your father's car to increase its security and resilience to accidents free of charge? Because Microsoft has been doing that for Windows XP users for 13 years!
He shouldn't and if you have the same situation with a PC with Windows XP then you shouldn't upgrade that either. Of course if you want ongoing maintenance then yes you do need to upgrade to a newer version.
Yes, it's 2014 and I can pay and extra $50/computer, plus technician time and losses to system down time if the IT staff doesn't have a night shift to add another 4GB of RAM in order to be able to gracefully run a newer OS which will cost me another $100 (plus technician and down time). So I've paid $200 or more to upgrade an old computer to a newer OS and my return on investment is... what exactly?
Ongoing maintenance. You've had it for well over a decade with, if your OS cost you - as you stated - $100 then that's less than $10 per year per seat for OS and maintenance. That cost is peanuts to most people and barely a rounding error to any corporation. But if that's too much for you or you don't see a benefit in ongoing maintenance then stick with XP or switch to a Linux distro that offers a similar maintenance period (if you can find one).
If MS stops patching security holes in XP every time grandma installs malware MS gets the blame.
Why on earth would you need to worry about security holes if you have people willing to install programs with root privileges anyway? The malware has root privileges, it doesn't need security holes.
I think it's pretty much been established that people don't *like* Win8.
Of course some people don't like it and of course they will be vocal about it but the usage share of Windows 8 is more than OSX or Ubuntu or Chrome OS and the latter 2 are a viable alternative on all the systems that ship with Windows 8 it's just that most people don't want them.
Yeah i'm sure all those people who were confused by the lack of a start menu while retaining existing application compatibility are going to be real happy with another OS that also doesn't have a start menu and discards existing application compatibility.
..or maybe xp is good enough for them and the newer versions of windows don't offer enough incentive to upgrade. Considering how bad current microsoft contracts are, it might actually make more sense to wall those machines off from the net and keep using them instead of staying on that one-more-patch-tuesday-til-I'm-secure treadmill.
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Now you've jumped topics. We were talking about SECURITY updates. Not FEATURE updates.
So how was the security of the Opel improved by the manufacturer? In any case the difference there is irrelevant, I already stated in the case of Windows XP the product was improved by the manufacturer over time, in the case of the Opel it was not. To which you responded Car manufacturers offer firmware upgrades when they are needed with yearly maintenance. but that response doesn't address the issue at all: what was improved?
Going back to what you said about why you tried this flawed analogy: Car security becomes noticeably better. Cars become easier to drive and more resilient to accidents even if they do occur. How has the Opel's security become noticeably better and how has it become easier to drive and more resilient to accidents? The manufacturer has not improved any of these things, unlike with Windows XP where Microsoft has improved the security and added features to make it easier to use.
Try and actually answer the questions, then you will see how wrong you are. I've bolded them to make them clearer.
hrm...seems the 2011 ones used AMD chips, appears it is Apple's testing of their products that isn't up to par.
And how much more will you complain about Apple's prices after they extensively re-test all their components, just so their suppliers don't have to stand behind the claims they make for their components reliability?
Well where is their responsibility to the customer? "Oh it's not our fault, it's our supplier." Well why the hell do they continue to fuck their customers over by using that supplier? They had a problem with 2008 systems (first year failures too) and now they're having it with 2011 systems and they still use nVidia GPUs, why?!
One of the primary selling points is their longevity.
While I agree they do tend to last - though I'm sure there's anecdotal evidence to support that both ways just like any other computer manufacturer - they go out of support quite quickly. My 2010 MBP is still going great but OS support for it will likely be dropped in the next release, Mountain Lion dropped support even for some systems just over 3 years old.
That is if something is broken, handling a new threat is not something being broken. If your airbags don't work properly then it will be recalled for repair but they don't add airbags to a car that doesn't have them. What new features were added to the Opel by the manufacturer for free over its lifetime? None. But Microsoft added things like WPA support, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, Windows Firewall, IPv6, WPS, Peer-to-Peer Networking, etc... for free, these are features it simply did not have but were added.
That's because something on it broke.
Car manufacturers offer firmware upgrades when they are needed with yearly maintenance.
And has this happened with the Opel? The whole point of this is that they are very different things and are not analogous for the purpose of this discussion. People don't expect free updates post-purchase that increase security and stability, they do expect it for their operating system.
No this is entirely the point, in the case of Windows XP the product was improved by the manufacturer over time, in the case of the Opel it was not.
So if I rob you at gun point with an unloaded gun, there is no crime, right?
Of course there is, you robbed somebody, the gun is irrelevant.
OS/2 Warp was around in the 70s?
It doesn't matter that the OS was insecure as released or is no longer being patched.
This is nothing to do with the security of the OS at all.
When a naïve user is tricked into installing something bad with admin rights, all fingers will be pointed at Microsoft. While MS can't do anything about a PEBCAK problem, at least the extra year of support will postpone that fecal-matter-meets-rotary-air-impeller event.
How? Whether they patch security holes makes no difference because the issue you describe is nothing to do with security holes.
Rubbish, I'll try to put it another way to be clearer: What security and accident resilience features were developed and delivered for free by Opel for your father's car after purchase?
If you discount the fact that these require workers on salary that needs to be paid and spare parts that need to be mined, refined and built, yes, you could call the actual support "free".
Everything is free if you discount the fact that it has a cost, the software maintenance requires workers on salary that need to be paid and bandwidth and infrastructure to send out patches. So the answer is no, they haven't been out to increase the security and resilience of the vehicle for free.
Was the botnet doing anything bad?
Mining bitcoins.
Some people find TOR using a Chrome browser. Should they have the authority to remove that too only to tell you about it later in a blog?
RTFA:
"To fight back, Microsoft remotely removed the program from as many computers as it could, along with the Tor clients it used."
Sounds like they removed the malware and the files it downloaded.
Car security becomes noticeably better. Cars become easier to drive and more resilient to accidents even if they do occur.
And has Opel ever sent updates out to maintain your father's car to increase its security and resilience to accidents free of charge? Because Microsoft has been doing that for Windows XP users for 13 years!
So tell me, why should he update?
He shouldn't and if you have the same situation with a PC with Windows XP then you shouldn't upgrade that either. Of course if you want ongoing maintenance then yes you do need to upgrade to a newer version.
Yes, it's 2014 and I can pay and extra $50/computer, plus technician time and losses to system down time if the IT staff doesn't have a night shift to add another 4GB of RAM in order to be able to gracefully run a newer OS which will cost me another $100 (plus technician and down time). So I've paid $200 or more to upgrade an old computer to a newer OS and my return on investment is... what exactly?
Ongoing maintenance. You've had it for well over a decade with, if your OS cost you - as you stated - $100 then that's less than $10 per year per seat for OS and maintenance. That cost is peanuts to most people and barely a rounding error to any corporation. But if that's too much for you or you don't see a benefit in ongoing maintenance then stick with XP or switch to a Linux distro that offers a similar maintenance period (if you can find one).
If MS stops patching security holes in XP every time grandma installs malware MS gets the blame.
Why on earth would you need to worry about security holes if you have people willing to install programs with root privileges anyway? The malware has root privileges, it doesn't need security holes.
I think it's pretty much been established that people don't *like* Win8.
Of course some people don't like it and of course they will be vocal about it but the usage share of Windows 8 is more than OSX or Ubuntu or Chrome OS and the latter 2 are a viable alternative on all the systems that ship with Windows 8 it's just that most people don't want them.
So how is it that having to deal with Win8 would be any different to switching to OSX or Ubuntu or a Chromebook?
Because Apple products don't go end of life, they go out of fashion.
Yeah i'm sure all those people who were confused by the lack of a start menu while retaining existing application compatibility are going to be real happy with another OS that also doesn't have a start menu and discards existing application compatibility.
..or maybe xp is good enough for them and the newer versions of windows don't offer enough incentive to upgrade. Considering how bad current microsoft contracts are, it might actually make more sense to wall those machines off from the net and keep using them instead of staying on that one-more-patch-tuesday-til-I'm-secure treadmill.
Then why bother extending the update deadline?
I assume the answer is yes since the alternative is bugs, and there's no reason to ever ship bugs.
Unless you can't ship anything because you have no money.