Does anyone have a source directly from Google?
The article doesn't contain much substance.
Google ditches Windows on security concerns
101–110 of 158 posts
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#102My advice: Try to avoid making business decisions for emotional reasons. Do business based on rational analysis of the facts, or it will cost you in the long run.
Google seems to be ignoring that advice, ditching an entire operating system and all the potentially cool stuff that comes with it because they're a company full of developers who don't particularly like Windows, and because they compete with Microsoft and therefore hold a bit of a grudge.
They're certainly within their rights to do this, and they can justify it to themselves as being for "security reasons", but in the end all it will do is weaken them a little bit.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#103Colour me skeptical. Writing Chrome? Testing on IE?
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#104Security in software is relative. Everything is vulnerable. If someone wants to hack into Google's super-secret data and Google is running Linux or Mac OS X, then the hackers will find exploits in that software. This article is a joke for implying that this switch will in any way make them more secure.
If they're using Linux, they can find and patch the vulnerability immediately. They could even have a team hunting through the source code looking for vulnerabilities to patch. On Windows, they would have to report the vulnerability to Microsoft, and hope that it's patched soon. It probably would be, but that's still an extra step - and they wouldn't be able to locate it with reference to the code. Also, as another p…
but this was rumored to be a zero-day attack, which means nobody knew about the exploit so it was as-of-yet unpatched. even if they we're running goobuntu with the full capability of patching the source and deploying fixes, a zero-day attack would have made it through in the beginning. switching operating systems is not going to secure against zero-day attacks.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#105Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#106The 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.
That's why virtual machines exists i would say.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#107[deleted]
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#108My advice: Try to avoid making business decisions for emotional reasons. Do business based on rational analysis of the facts, or it will cost you in the long run. Google seems to be ignoring that advice, ditching an entire operating system and all the potentially cool stuff that comes with it because they're a company full of developers who don't particularly like Windows, and because they compete with Microsoft and…
Of course they are not making a business decision for emotional reasons. By choosing an open source OS, Google gains more control on its systems, and avoids using a product of a competitor. Moreover, Google trusts its employees' judgement about a product: if you think your employees are competent, then you listen to them. If something, their decision weakens Microsoft.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#109The main reason a Mac user (in practical terms) is more secure then a Windows user is because Mac users typically are using the latest version of the OS, whereas an typical Windows user is at least one SP behind, maybe more?. Especially if said Windows sits in an office environment where there is a very slow adaption rate. Also, any unauthorized copy of Windows is most likely never updated.
The main reason a Mac user is more secure than a Windows one is because a Mac system is running on a sounder security architecture (not administrator by default, etc.). You can only go that far in retrofitting an OS which made the wrong decisions on the start.
Re: Google ditches Windows on security concerns
#110My advice: Try to avoid making business decisions for emotional reasons. Do business based on rational analysis of the facts, or it will cost you in the long run. Google seems to be ignoring that advice, ditching an entire operating system and all the potentially cool stuff that comes with it because they're a company full of developers who don't particularly like Windows, and because they compete with Microsoft and…
Of course they are not making a business decision for emotional reasons. By choosing an open source OS, Google gains more control on its systems, and avoids using a product of a competitor. Moreover, Google trusts its employees' judgement about a product: if you think your employees are competent, then you listen to them. If something, their decision weakens Microsoft.
Sure they are.
They're saying "Windows has nothing to offer us, and there is no Windows software that our developers might want that justifies having Windows machines in our offices." If you work at Google and want to use, for example, CodeSmith, you have to get special permission from the CIO to build a Windows machine to install it on.
Clearly CodeSmith is a good tool that developers might want to use, but because of management's vague fear of "security concerns", it's now off the table for your average dev.