The danger here is that they will lose touch with the 80% of their user base that uses windows. If they don't have enough people who intimately understand the computing experience of their users then their products could suffer.
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Google ditches Windows on security concerns
41–50 of 158 posts
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well Google is also competing with Apple's OS business. The bigger point is that Windows doesn't offer users any advantage over Linux or OS X anymore. Its not like the old days when Windows had the most applications and driver support.
The number of games supported on Windows is much better than for Mac/Linux.
In the context of Google, that is not a criteria.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well Google is also competing with Apple's OS business. The bigger point is that Windows doesn't offer users any advantage over Linux or OS X anymore. Its not like the old days when Windows had the most applications and driver support.
The number of games supported on Windows is much better than for Mac/Linux.
.. and that is one more reason for corporates to move to Mac/Linux
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#44"Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval," said another employee. I really hope that's quoted out of context (e.g. maybe it's really getting a second machine, regardless of OS, that requires CIO approval?). I doubt we're getting the whole story here. I'm sure there are everyday tasks that can be done more effectively on Windows (I've been Linux-only for a couple of years now, so I can't imagine what t…
> I'd speculate this is more about politics, or dogfooding
Agree on the dogfooding.
I think Google is planning a major attack on Microsoft's business / office empire. They have made it so simple to set up a new business using Google apps that it's almost unthinkable to me that I would go out and do an exchange setup. But this is largely still in stealth mode because Google wants to bring its business apps up to the point where they are a alternative to Office for real tasks before they really play this hand. And that means they have to force their employees to live on them every day, for everything. If they can't do it, how can they expect their customers to? And the best way to make it happen is to take away Windows entirely. Otherwise people will continue to fall back to Office and find reasons to sneak it onto their computers.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
?! Are you missing the part where OS X is based on BSD?
That's a myth. There are some parts like libc and the command line apps that were ported from BSD, the the kernel is a mach-that-isn't-anymore hybrid oddity, and the user interface is an Apple-only system. So, to a good approximation, you can say that the command line is based on BSD, and the rest came from NeXT and Apple, with a bit of GNU mixed in. The BSD heritage is rather insignificant when it comes to security,…
Mac OS X Leopard receives UNIX 03 certification: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2007/08/mac-os-x-leopard-r...
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#46Is there any evidence that Windows 7 is less secured than Snow Leopard? Windows employs more advanced security techniques. IE has outlasted Safari in Pwn2Own since IE8. Windows releases security fixes much faster. If they favor OS X over Windows that is completely fine, but I think they are implying something that isn't true in regards to security. If someone exploits OS X on them, is everyone moving to Linux next?
And what happens when someone exploits Linux?
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#47Is there any evidence that Windows 7 is less secured than Snow Leopard? Windows employs more advanced security techniques. IE has outlasted Safari in Pwn2Own since IE8. Windows releases security fixes much faster. If they favor OS X over Windows that is completely fine, but I think they are implying something that isn't true in regards to security. If someone exploits OS X on them, is everyone moving to Linux next?
Market share: Windows 90%, Mac 9%, Linux 1%.
Where are virus writers going to put most of their effort?
Windows being as secure as Mac wouldn't help make it safer because a lot more implemented exploits are going to exist in the wild.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#48Is there any evidence that Windows 7 is less secured than Snow Leopard? Windows employs more advanced security techniques. IE has outlasted Safari in Pwn2Own since IE8. Windows releases security fixes much faster. If they favor OS X over Windows that is completely fine, but I think they are implying something that isn't true in regards to security. If someone exploits OS X on them, is everyone moving to Linux next?
Market share: Windows 90%, Mac 9%, Linux 1%. Where are virus writers going to put most of their effort? Windows being as secure as Mac wouldn't help make it safer because a lot more implemented exploits are going to exist in the wild.
While this move may prevent infection by FR33_PR0N.wmv.exe, I don't see how it will prevent being hacked by China (the major concern).
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why they're ditching not IE but windows altogether. Doesn't seem knee-jerk to me when you look at the security track record of the various platforms.
Yes, it does. Recent versions of Windows (Vista and especially 7) have had security track records at least on par with OS X and desktop Linux. Mac OS X hasn't been doing terribly well lately, and Apple is notoriously slow to patch known security flaws, e.g.: http://bit.ly/62bTNQ I'd provide a link to hard data, but for some reason Secunia's taken down their list of unpatched vulnerabilities in OS X (?!), even though…
Sorry, but that simply doesn't matter.
Case in point, OSX even had more security advisories published than windows for a while, yet the "experts" still mostly agree OSX is the safer platform;
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10444561-245.html?tag=rtco...
There's a very simple reason: OSX has around 6% market share, Windows around 80%. Go figure which platform the kids are going to target for the time being. Also feel free to research on which platform the major, semi-automated botnets (Storm, Zeus) are running.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#50The big hack was apparently based on a zero day IE flaw. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/hack-of-adob Wouldn't it be easier to make their employees use chrome?
Much easier. They could for example setup Active Directory policies to disable the use of IE by default.