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

#201

Post by cbr » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:44 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…

I remember when this was happening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_(computer_worm)

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

#202

Post by halflings » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:45 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #183

DannyBee wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This represents such a fundamental misunderstanding of the power structures i almost don't know where to begin. Suffice to say, if it was as easy as waving the magic wand you think it is, it would have happened already. Instead, if you tried to wave it, handset makers would have walked and just done something else. Heck, some did! Besides, why stop at Google? Why not blame the carriers for devices like this be on the…

>Instead, if you tried to wave it, handset makers would have walked and just done something else. Heck, some did! Yes some have and some more would have. And then it would have been up to these holdouts to come up with a viable OS. Good luck with that. Almost everybody who tried has failed. There is no doubt in my mind that Google could force it successfully, but why would they? Everything is moving in their directio…

By the same logic: Why wouldn't they?

Surely Google is not intentionally refraining from solving the high fragmentation it is suffering from (which makes developing for Android harder, and keeps some people from receiving security updates)

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

#203

Post by temac » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:47 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #139

enzanki_ars wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of is Google's fault. Most people associate any version of Android with Google. Manufactures that don't update their phones causes harm to both the manufacture's image and Google image. Personally, I place all the blame on Google for not making the upgrades possible from their side. It should be easy to upgrade the core operating system as easy as updating Windows, OSX, and Linux.

> It kind of is Google's fault. Most people associate any version of Android with Google. Manufactures that don't update their phones causes harm to both the manufacture's image and Google image. This makes no sense. "People associate X with Y" is not the same as "Y is responsible for X". If I associate Android with Linux, is Linus now culpable for Android's security problems? > Personally, I place all the blame on G…

> This makes no sense. "People associate X with Y" is not the same as "Y is responsible for X". If I associate Android with Linux, is Linus now culpable for Android's security problems?

This is ridiculous. Linus in Android is a component, not a whole system, and phone vendor own SW are way too accessory in the ecosystem and add so little value in it that they don't render Android a mere component in the same way: the base Android is the system, whereas drivers and 3rd party GUI or other minor stuff are what should be sufficiently decoupled so that Android can be updated without vendor consent.

Doing otherwise has proven to expose users at risk, and given its situation Google is responsible, not a swarn of phone vendors.

I might not be saying that if Android was really open, but then Android might not have that market share. Well, in the end, even that reinforce the argument that Google is responsible...

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

#204

Post by bubblethink » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:50 PM UTC

temac wrote: post #197

bubblethink wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 more competition in the h/w space? Common, you already have an insane amount of competition for Android phones

That competition is only on the surface. For SoC, GPU, baseband, radios etc., you are stuck with Qualcomm. Or maybe Samsung's exynos, which isn't necessarily better.

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

#205

Post by temac » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:52 PM UTC

bitmapbrother wrote: post #167

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Note my use of the word "effectively". Unless you're in China, where Google does not operate, there is no such thing as Android without Google Play Services. (Attempts to sell Android devices without Google Play outside of China have, for the most part[1], been dismal failures.) And Google has to give their written approval for the release of each and every device or software update of Android with Google Play Ser…

> Google created the OS. In fact, OEMs are forbidden from forking Android, and therefore, cannot "roll their own OS" from Android, without violating their agreement with Google. Yes, they sprinkle some of their own apps and drivers in, but this is a design flaw in Android: Google needs to be updating their own software independently of manufacturer-specific components. Forbidden from forking Android? Every OEM versio…

> They take the AOSP source code that Google drops and then they add all of their source code and then build and distribute their own version of Android that only they can update.

Yep that's a insanely huge design flaw, coherent with: "Google needs to be updating their own software independently of manufacturer-specific components."

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

#206

Post by digi_owl » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:52 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #179

_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…

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…

Seems to me that Android had better security from the outset than (consumer) Windows had. It was not until XP that most home computers even had a notion of multiple users in any real sense, thanks to the NT core.

And i don't think the problem is so much that people do not value security, but that they approach a computer like it is an appliance. Meaning that they do not internalize that it can do things without them being physically present and setting things in motion (i find it unnerving that Windows 10 can apparently bring a laptop out of shutdown to do updates in the middle of the night, thanks to programmable timers embedded in the BIOS/UEFI).

I really wish that a modern PC got more "blinkenlights" not less (i hate helping my mom with her laptop, as the damn thing do not even have a HDD activity light).

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

#207

Post by codys » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:53 PM UTC

geodel wrote: post #190

dpark wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One reason is API change. For closed source solution they do not have to worry about API changes but open Android has to have much more elaborate API deprecation and change process.

That isn't true.

Nothing about open source requires that they in any way stabilize their web-side APIs, the process they would follow could be the same as their binary releases, just with open source code released at the same time.

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

#208

Post by fauigerzigerk » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:56 PM UTC

halflings wrote: post #202

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instead, if you tried to wave it, handset makers would have walked and just done something else. Heck, some did! Yes some have and some more would have. And then it would have been up to these holdouts to come up with a viable OS. Good luck with that. Almost everybody who tried has failed. There is no doubt in my mind that Google could force it successfully, but why would they? Everything is moving in their directio…

By the same logic: Why wouldn't they? Surely Google is not intentionally refraining from solving the high fragmentation it is suffering from (which makes developing for Android harder, and keeps some people from receiving security updates)

>Why wouldn't they?

Because it causes friction, it's a distraction for management, and there is a danger that some of those rebel handset makers could have some success or get poached by Microsoft/Bing even if they fail at creating an alternative OS.

There is risk without much upside for Google compared to the gradual approach they are taking now.

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

#209

Post by DannyBee » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:58 PM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #165

DannyBee wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This represents such a fundamental misunderstanding of the power structures i almost don't know where to begin. Suffice to say, if it was as easy as waving the magic wand you think it is, it would have happened already. Instead, if you tried to wave it, handset makers would have walked and just done something else. Heck, some did! Besides, why stop at Google? Why not blame the carriers for devices like this be on the…

Or it is within Googles power, but not within Googles interest to do so, so we in turn have power by getting outraged at Google, shouting from the rooftops and creating an incentive for them to apply more pressure to handset makers. Walking away from Android is not currently a realistic option for most of them (recent Sony Sailfish news non-withstanding).

You are right, they are just being completely self interested and it would all just work out happily if only they would just beat people over the head repeatedly. That has worked out so great in the past for them and others, and would not result in Android being abandoned wholesale for something worse inside of two years.

If only they had thought of this. Oh, that's right, I forgot, it's not that this is much more nuanced and complex ecosystem interplay, it's that it's very black and white and they uniformly don't give a crap.

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

#210

Post by problems » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 7:58 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…

> 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.

I witnessed this myself back in the day. I was probably about 14 at the time, had just freshly reinstalled a machine, installed AV (from a CD, hah.) and connected it to the internet for the first time via PPPoE DSL. Within minutes I had AV popups from having been hit by Blaster before I could even update Windows. In that day, few people had routers or WiFi, many, my family included just had a single machine connected to a modem directly and so had no NAT.

It was never individual attackers - it was worms running on other systems that had reached critical mass and were just hitting random IPs on the internet with the exploit in an attempt to infect more systems.

You're extremely unlikely to see something this bad with a modern OS - most of the time you're behind a NAT, provided by your router or your mobile provider which effectively blocks inbound connections. There's also exploit mitigations like NX and ASLR which are pretty much how the Stagefright bug didn't turn into a nice new MMS worm - it just sounded scary, but over a year later we've not seen any major attacks from it.

If you plug directly into the internet or DMZ your machine, you'll still see this type of stuff. I've heard it called "internet background radiation" - old worms out scanning for possible targets to this day.