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from the Alt-right-plot-to-rule-the-world-through-Windows-exploitables dept.
This was just too funny not to submit. Do you not have the latest keyboard-logging Windows 10 on your, um computer? Not your computer, you know. But now, it turns out, according to the formerly great tech journal ZDNet, you are at risk! "Awake! Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!"
But, wait for it, only if you run Windows.
Over half of applications installed on Windows PCs are out-of-date, potentially putting the security of users at risk through flaws in software that have already been patched by vendors.
Around 55 percent of software installed on PCs across the globe is in the form of an older version of the application, according to research by security company Avast — and that number has risen from 48 percent in their previous report.
Based upon anonyimized[sic] and aggregated data from 163 million devices around the world, Avast's PC trends report also suggests that almost one in six Windows 7 users and one in ten Windows 10 users are running out-of-date versions of their operating system, also leaving them open to exploitation of system-level security vulnerabilities.
Some of the programs most commonly left out-of-date include Adobe Shockwave, VLC Media Player, Skype, Java Runtime Environment, and 7-Zip Filemanager.
Putting off installing updates and running outdated applications can cause bugs and incompatibility problems for users, but more significantly, running out-of-date software can provide an open door for hackers to take advantage of holes left in programs that haven't had critical security updates applied.
Well, there it is. If you run Windows, you are running a security risk. Funny they would think how current your capitulation to the "Dark Side" is would make any difference. But on the other hand, the advice in general is good, just do not run anything out of Redmond, where the Dark Lord rules, and keep up to date on security patches. Except on my Android Phone. They ask me to do security upgrades, and I think, "Why?" I cannot remove the goddamned bloat-ware they put on goddamned thing, and they want me to approve upgrades? Hell no! I will rot in hell with my aging Android phone, with a version of Android nearly as old as I am, because the bastards will not allow me to upgrade to a more current version!
If Linux did shit like this, systemd aside, I would be BSD all the way. Sorry, too much commentary for a submission. But, really? Am I wrong?
P.S. When exactly did ZDNet take the tumble? Does anyone remember? Was it with the review of the new Microsoft Disk Compression Utility?
(Score: 3, Disagree) by driverless on Wednesday January 23 2019, @08:30AM (10 children)
Sheesh. I think I just time-warped back into the 1990s from reading that. The ZDNet article is interesting enough in terms of the data it represents (although I think unpatched servers are a vastly bigger problem than an out-of-date copy of 7Zip on mom's email PC), but the 1990s-level anti-Microsoft whining kinda overshadows it all. And I'm saying that as a non-Windows user. The bash-Micro$oft-bandwagon was fashionable twenty years ago, but we've kinda moved on...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23 2019, @08:40AM
As long as there is some vestige of the horse remaining, it is not without purpose that we beat it.
And the FUD, and the Fear, and the sole platform for games, all these will be gone, and Paul Atreides, . . . Lost my literary thread. We were beating Worms, to extract their Spice, no? Seventies? Do you refer to the film, or to the corpus?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23 2019, @09:29AM (1 child)
Windows 10 is much more consumer-abusive than anything Microsoft did in the 90's.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Thursday January 24 2019, @01:19PM
I hadn't thought of that before, but it's true. Microsofts' previous "evil" was mostly anti-competitive behavior that was bad for the industry and selling poor quality software. Their current "evil" aimed more at the consumer.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 23 2019, @01:58PM (1 child)
I paid £100 for an OS that *advertises* at me. Note Android, which is a free as in beer operating system run by the biggest advertising outfit in the world (well maybe), does not advertise at me.
£100!
It is the most expensive software license that I own bar none.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by stretch611 on Wednesday January 23 2019, @02:21PM
As much as I prefer Android to its competitors...
The OS may not overtly advertise to you... but like Win10, it does slurp your personal data.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 23 2019, @05:05PM (3 children)
While there is evil, it must be fought. Do you TRULY think Microsoft has turned over a new leaf? Do you really and honestly think they're any better morally now than they were in the mid 90s? Don't delude yourself; the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The leopard, as Nanny Ogg says, does not change his shorts. Indeed, the way corporations work, he cannot.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23 2019, @09:30PM
Microsoft never turned over a new leaf, they just tried to cover up their true intentions until the DoJ let up on them. In the process they made a lot of relatively inexperienced developers and computer enthusiasts think they were a company with good intentions and was "with it" in regards to things like interoperability and open source software. The raw speed with which they made up for lost time with Windows 10 is disturbing, including the changes they made to the UEFI standard for secure boot for Windows 10 (which seems like it's an attempt to slowly progress towards disallowing you to boot "unapproved" operating systems, e.g. no longer requiring companies to let you bypass secure boot as it was in the days of Windows 8 and the DoJ's oversight).
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday January 24 2019, @02:00AM (1 child)
I'm not saying Microsoft is good or bad, I'm saying that the point of a news site like this is to report the news, not engage in a bunch of juvenile whining. That's what the comments section is for. Compare the presentation here with the one on that other site [slashdot.org]. No whining, just a statement of what was found, and people can decide for themselves.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:58AM
And if only all those trade unionists, Jews, and other undesireables had just been POLITE with the Nazis, the Holocaust would never have happened. Tone trolling has replaced patriotism as the last refuge of the scoundrel. If facts are delivered in the voice of Gilbert Gottfried on a combination of cocaine and helium, they are still just as factual even if you want to rip your ears off from how annoying the voice delivering them is.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23 2019, @07:04PM
The reason Windows bashing was always so popular was the requirement to reinstall every day, and the constant BSOD as has been mentioned by other posters.
At that time Windows was bashed on terms of performance, stability, security. The one and only thing that's improved is the BSODs and stability, they finally managed to do this.
But what happened from my perspective is people stopped bashing windows because this one problem was solved, and so they were let off the hook.
My argument is that fixing just one of these problems whilst enhancing the problems they already have (plus adding a privacy nightmare, and alienating all desktop users) is not a valid reason to let them off the hook, and they should never have been. The trend should never have stopped. Long live Windows bashing ;-)