Meanwhile Internet Explorer 11 refuses to die having a share above 3%...
I am currently on a customer where they only allow for IE 11 and FF ESR on their systems.
Anything else is a security breach.
Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
71–80 of 417 posts
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
This intrigues me, as it clashes with everything I know about how classic game software was designed. Around what decade are we talking about? Can you name one or two examples of games that were designed like this?
Usually only adventure games, and point and click ones did that. Think of games like Maniac Mansion or adventure writing software like PAWS.
Ah, alright. When you said "early days of microcomputers" I was rather thinking about the Atari 2600.
The VM approach was in absolute terms actually pretty unusual in the late 80s/early 90s, AFAIK. Perhaps counting only cross-platform games or adventure it was more common, though.
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#73When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?
Well, Microsoft put OS/2 and BeOS out of business, and nearly did the same for Apple. While this was happening, FreeBSD and Linux emerged as excellent Unix variants, so when Apple and Google went to look for their own OSs to deploy, they leveraged what was already available. If you're looking for alternatives, there is stuff being developed. Google's Fuscia is intriguing, and there are other non-Unix kernels from oth…
The fun thing is that OS/2 could have put DR-DOS out of business if MS didn't turn OS/2 2.0 into an entire fiasco.
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#74When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?
Well, Microsoft put OS/2 and BeOS out of business, and nearly did the same for Apple. While this was happening, FreeBSD and Linux emerged as excellent Unix variants, so when Apple and Google went to look for their own OSs to deploy, they leveraged what was already available. If you're looking for alternatives, there is stuff being developed. Google's Fuscia is intriguing, and there are other non-Unix kernels from oth…
But Apple and IBM (and some others) spent years and millions of dollars coming up with an alternative. And they ended up with FreeBSD and Linux. You could say the software development was badly managed in many cases, or the business case wasn't there because of the app-OS dependency. But I think the fact that everybody failed implies a failure to come up with something better. And therefore a lack of progress,.
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no technical necessity for it to be closed source, though. That's a business decision.
I imagine the bits that to talk to Google's servers need to be.
I imagine that's a purely business decision since Google owns the code and can open-source it if they wish. There's no reason that the code to talk to Google's servers needs to be closed source.
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#76When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?
There's a very long list of inferior technologies that beat superior ones in popularity, or age.
QWERTY keyboards, Electronic forms, Combustion engines, Agribusiness refinements, Byte-oriented computers, Genetic technology (outside of GM crops), Building construction/insulation, Monorail and near-sonic trains, Pharmaceuticals, PlayStation, 8086, TDMA, USB, PHP, VHS...
The most common link between them is a low barrier to entry, which has multiple facets.
1. Intellectual Property
If you patent technology, it makes it hard or more expensive for others to license and/or implement it, which leads to a loss of market share unless you completely monopolize the market your product occupies. Any alternative technology which is both cheaper and more ubiquitous will dominate.
2. Cost
More advanced technology is, almost by default, more costly. It is costly for manufacturers to develop a new process to manufacture it, it is more costly for developers to learn to develop new products that use it, and it is more costly for consumers to buy it, both because of the lack of manufacturers and developers for it. It also will inevitably require one to learn a new way to use it.
3. Doesn't address a critical need
If there are two competing technologies, and both provide for the same need, the one that best addresses a need and costs less will win out. If one does not provide for a critical need, it will be left in the dust. Often that "need" is as simple as being faster or easier to operate, but it can also include specific functions.
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The earlier you are able to introduce a technology, and as long as a newer technology does not beat you on platform support, cost, and critical features, you will remain on top.
Browsers are a good model for how this has changed hands over the years. The barrier for entry is smaller because you can make them for multiple OS platforms fairly easily, but sometimes one would have a monopoly. So to compete with the monopoly, one browser would remove a barrier to entry - cost - and develop new critical features. But then the other competitors could adopt the same changes and compete again.
Another example is Intel x86. Intel tried several times to end the x86 product line. But as the industry refined standards around it, it became too expensive and complicated to try and introduce a complete replacement. It was even forced to adopt features that competitors introduced.
UNIX (and C, since a lot of people lump them together) has stayed around so long because it has a low cost, low complexity, is ubiquitous, can adopt new features easily, and is highly compatible/portable. Even if you have a new critical feature, it can usually just adopt it.
In the end, kernel design has nothing directly to do with how it is adopted by users. Kernel design affects how software developers, and later manufacturers, will use it. And that affects what is left for users to adopt. Nobody really notices a kernel; what they notice is the ecosystem.
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually only adventure games, and point and click ones did that. Think of games like Maniac Mansion or adventure writing software like PAWS.
Ah, alright. When you said "early days of microcomputers" I was rather thinking about the Atari 2600. The VM approach was in absolute terms actually pretty unusual in the late 80s/early 90s, AFAIK. Perhaps counting only cross-platform games or adventure it was more common, though.
Just a small correction, I am not the author of "early days of microcomputers". :)
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#78I had recently been looking for a laptop to replace my wife's aging machine. She wanted something to hit all her social media stuff, save pictures and videos, basic office, and watch her tv and movie streams. I had a barely-used lenovo that I had put xubuntu on that I wanted her to try first to gauge her size and performance requirements, but she wasn't ready for linux. I searched around a bit (knowing putting window…
That seems like the direction Google is going with Chromebooks. Presumably newer models support running Android apps as well.
There's an open source version of ChromeOS that you can install on normal PCs, but I'm not sure if this version comes with Android support.
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
This intrigues me, as it clashes with everything I know about how classic game software was designed. Around what decade are we talking about? Can you name one or two examples of games that were designed like this?
Usually only adventure games, and point and click ones did that. Think of games like Maniac Mansion or adventure writing software like PAWS.
Lost Vikings have been mentioned on HN a few times, and Blizzard used a VM for that game.
Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system
#80I guess this means we can officially stop hating on Microsoft for having such a lax attitude towards security, considering their last OS to suffer from that attitude was released 16 years ago, and it accounts for less than 3% of present day traffic according to statcounter.com Meanwhile according to the same stats, Android sits around 37.9%, and I have to wonder just how many of those devices are still impacted by fo…
The difference being that you can install or upgrade Windows on a system without buying a new laptop or requiring support from the vendor; the vendor doesn't lock down laptops to prevent upgrades and force people to buy a new device instead.
>The difference being that you can install or upgrade Windows on a system without buying a new laptop or requiring support from the vendor; the vendor doesn't lock down laptops to prevent upgrades and force people to buy a new device instead.
As a poweruser, I have installed new versions of Windows AND new versions of Android.
To the average user, neither is feasible.
To a technical user, both are possible.
I don't like this comparison. Many of us switch out AndroidOS's very frequently. It's actually not hard at all to install a custom recovery and load a different and custom version of android.
In fact, considering how defined the android ecosystem of alternative OS's is, and how undefined the Microsoft one is, one could easily suggest that Android is far less locked down.
After all, some Android replacements like Cyanogen/Lineage are far more developed and popular than Windows replacements.