Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system • Hacker News Board

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#191

Post by hermitdev » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

fridsun wrote: post #173

hermitdev wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware monoculture? Surely you must be joking. There are only a few to several dozen current Android phone models being sold at a given time. There are thousands upon thousands of PC models being sold among major manufacturers. This doesnt even begin to account for home builds or customizations. There is a very slim chamce that anyone has the exact same hardware config as my PC, yet Windows still has to work on it.…

If you break those PC models open what's really different? The hardware interfaces of PC has almost always been stable since the age of IBM PC clones. It might not be a monoculture in terms of all the RGB lightings you can put on your machine, but you definitely don't need to worry about different protocols. All the while Android phones can have the weirdest SoC's on the planet in them.

I admittedly have zero experience with configuring HW with ARM.

However, to say that HW interfaces on the PC have been stable since the age of IBM PC clones is a joke. In the DOS days, users manually had to manually set IO memory addresses and IRQ levels. Early Windows sat on top of DOS, so still had to do it there. Plug'n'Play didn't show up until Windows 95, and even then it was hit and miss. Some devices worked, others required manual configuration. RTM Win95 didn't support USB, either. That took the equivalent of a service pack (although, IIRC, they went by a different name back then. I want to say OSR1 added USB 1.1 support). Windows drivers didn't really get friendlier until the push to the NT kernel & it's HAL. Win2k had limited, but good support. WinXP got better. Vista was a step backwards. Win7, 8 and 10 have incrementally improved on Vista. Even on Windows 10, though, I have updates that "forget" a subset of my USB controllers. Windows doesn't know about drivers for my HOTAS. Most recent windows updates cause it to forget about my secondary monitor. Half the time after an update, my USB keyboard doesn't work (I have to login on my desktop using an on-screen keyboard to correct settings). I'm probably one of the only (or a small handful) of people that have a Geforce 690 & 1080 in the same system. Sure, PC might be better in that most peripherals go over USB. But, not all USB devices work with a generic driver, and Windows often doesn't include non-generic drivers for all but the most popular devices.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#192

Post by 0xCMP » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #185

narrator wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devil's advocate: Windows became the dominant platform when it had terrible security. Android became the dominant platform when it had terrible security. Maybe people don't care that much about security vs other features. At it's low point, Windows security was a lot worse than Android security. At one point, a fresh Windows XP machine plugged into the Internet would be compromised within a couple of min…

I don't really understand this metric at all. I've heard it colloquially, but I highly doubt anyone was scanning IP address ranges so often that you could be passively attacked on the internet without any interaction by two minutes in. Even more so, people are often behind NAT, which acts as a good firewall on its own. Maybe it's related to browsing habits? IE? I mean, you aren't going to get hit by a drive-by attack…

It may sound crazy, but I've heard of honey pots getting attacked in minutes many times.

Two minutes is probably too short, but an hour? Maybe not.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#193

Post by bubblethink » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

_wmd wrote: post #25

I 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…

Android's fragmentation and shitty vendor blobs are nothing new. What's more disappointing is that Google, despite all its might, didn't do anything significantly different for its own phones. The cost of owning a google phone used to be ~$100 a year given the price of Nexus used to be around the ~$300 mark and a 3 year support cycle. With Pixel, that cost has become more than 2x for the same support cycle. If google with its current stake can't strong arm Qualcomm and other h/w vendors, I doubt if it'll ever happen. Microkernels may make it better, but that's just shifting the perception. What's really needed is more competition in the h/w space.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#194

Post by temac » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

pwnna wrote: post #146

marcosdumay wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, somehow Linux distros are reasonably safe but Android is broken.

Not sure about the linux distro being safe part. Linux desktop distros are also riddled with vulnerabilities that no one bothered to look. This is along with the bad design of the desktop in the first place as there're no isolation between apps and so forth. Example: https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/fedora-and-ubuntu-0... Android on the other hand, has isolation mechanism built in as the central thesis of its…

Well, GNU/Linux distro are usually patched. Main ones for pretty much all known vulns. Tons of Android systems are not patched. I don't think any of those is secure against anybody motivated enough (and I'm not even thinking about a 3-letter agency, but any hacker competent enough!)

Arguably the security model of main desktop OSes is bad enough so that they are also easy to penetrate. That should not make us dismiss the problem of the way too many unmaintained Android systems!

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#195

Post by Retric » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

Shank wrote: post #185

narrator wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devil's advocate: Windows became the dominant platform when it had terrible security. Android became the dominant platform when it had terrible security. Maybe people don't care that much about security vs other features. At it's low point, Windows security was a lot worse than Android security. At one point, a fresh Windows XP machine plugged into the Internet would be compromised within a couple of min…

I don't really understand this metric at all. I've heard it colloquially, but I highly doubt anyone was scanning IP address ranges so often that you could be passively attacked on the internet without any interaction by two minutes in. Even more so, people are often behind NAT, which acts as a good firewall on its own. Maybe it's related to browsing habits? IE? I mean, you aren't going to get hit by a drive-by attack…

Dial up and early high speed internet both gave you a public IP address. The expectation you will have multiple internet devices is more recent behind a nat is more recent. And yes I dealt with an XP box that would get compromised before you could download the update.

Windows even included a utility to let people use it as a router on home networks to "share internet connections". https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/310563/description-...

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#196

Post by shp0ngle » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:33 PM UTC

bitmapbrother wrote: post #126

shp0ngle wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand it either. I get Windows security updates on every damn computer I buy. Yes, the computer is pre-loaded with bloat, but I still get updates like everyone else. Meanwhile, on Android, I mostly get nothing. What is so fundamentally different between PC and phone? Why is it so hard on mobile phones?

Does your OEM create their version of Windows? No, they ship the binaries they receive from Microsoft. As long as Android OEM's are allowed to build their own version of Android this problem will always be in the hands of the OEM.

Well they sort of do, by adding pre-installed bloat.

But it's still Windows.

I just wonder why that is. Maybe Microsoft has stricter licensing?

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#197

Post by temac » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:37 PM UTC

bubblethink wrote: post #193

_wmd wrote: post #25

I 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…

Android's fragmentation and shitty vendor blobs are nothing new. What's more disappointing is that Google, despite all its might, didn't do anything significantly different for its own phones. The cost of owning a google phone used to be ~$100 a year given the price of Nexus used to be around the ~$300 mark and a 3 year support cycle. With Pixel, that cost has become more than 2x for the same support cycle. If google…

I don't see how microkernels have anything to do with all of that? Userspace drivers exists in all systems and arguably they are not more backward compatible or anything than kernel-space drivers, just the incompatibilities appears against other system-frameworks in other address spaces, instead of the (micro)-kernel. Ex: when windows switched to 64-bits, 32-bits userspace printer drivers where incompatible (it could and IMO it should have been done otherwise, but what happen is that they were broken!)

And more competition in the h/w space? Common, you already have an insane amount of competition for Android phones, and even some of the biggest multinational don't give a shit about maintaining SW for their product beyond a few months, even for security purposes. The only think we can do is prescription to every people we know: ex. tell all your non technical friends to never buy e.g. a Samsung phone.

It's ridiculous, because Android is the worse ecosystem for security purposes. If you want to be somehow protected, you can stick to iPhones, or, in a funny way, Windows 10 Mobile.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#198

Post by ns8sl » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:38 PM UTC

I'm not sure about methodology differences, but this service tells a different story:

https://truemarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share?op...

Clear the 'Desktop/Laptop' filter and it gives share on all platform types. I think the difference in numbers may be due to this service is measuring only browsing activity.

It also removes 21% of traffic detected as bots, so that may also have an effect.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#199

Post by lettergram » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:41 PM UTC

Imo these stats are likely heavily sckewed by adblock. Most people on mobile don't realize they can install adblock or don't care.

And given the stats likely come from analytics which are blocked, it seems reasonable to assume these numbers are sckewed

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#200

Post by kyrra » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:41 PM UTC

_wmd wrote: post #25

I 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…

Not sure you consider this equivalent, but the Project Zero team has opened a number of issues against Android and phones that run android[0].

I'm wondering what blog posts on the Project Zero blog you consider to be "cheap muck"? There are a lot of posts on the Project Zero blog about Android as well.

[0] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-zero/issues/list?can=1&q...