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

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

#371

Post by flukus »

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…

That's a library vulnerability, nothing to do with bad design of the desktop.

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

#372

Post by flukus »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #290
temac wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there are security patches in Android? So the problem seems to be: some vendors seem not interested in distributing them... :/

Google distributes patches each month to OEM's 1 month before they're released. Some OEM's merge them into their code base and create a patch while others don't really care.

Does android have a patch mechanism OEM's can use to distribute the patches or do they have to distribute a whole new image?

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

#373

Post by _0w8t »

digi_owl wrote: post #218
_0w8t wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An ARM Chromebook that I bought more than 4 years ago still receives updates.

Yes and no. While Google will backport security fixes, and change the Chrome related layer, the kernel version you are running is likely the very same one your Chromebook shipped with. This is why they can claim that anything shipped from 2017 onwards will support Android apps, but maintain a list of potential devices from before that. Because said support need various container related features only found in newer k…

Google did updated kernel on the Chromebook. It happened at least 3 times IIRC.

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

#374

Post by pjmlp »

gizmo686 wrote: post #119
georgeecollins wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that implies that no one needs a different OS than Windows NT or Unix. People are constantly coming up with reasons to have new programming languages. Are there no reasons to justify a new OS?

Unix, in the sense that we talk about it today, is not an operating system, but a family of operating systems that is based on the original Unix. Linux is Unix in the same way that C is Algol. In the grand scheme of potential languages/operating systems they are very similar, and familiarity with one will transfer well. However, if you consider the ML family of languages (Haskell/Ocaml), or the Prolog family, you wil…

C is definitely not Algol.

"A consequence of this principle is that every occurrence of every subscript of every subscripted variable was on every occasion checked at run time against both the upper and the lower declared bounds of the array. Many years later we asked our customers whether they wished us to provide an option to switch off these checks in the interests of efficiency on production runs. Unanimously, they urged us not to--they already knew how frequently subscript errors occur on production runs where failure to detect them could be disastrous. I note with fear and horror that even in 1980 language designers and users have not learned this lesson. In any respectable branch of engineering, failure to observe such elementary precautions would have long been against the law."

-- C. A. R. Hoare, Turing award lecture in 1981,

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

#375

Post by pjmlp »

JonathonW wrote: post #233
JohnStrange wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the application barrier. It's a chicken and egg problem, nobody wants to use an OS without applications and not many want to develop for an OS that nobody uses. To get it started, a lot of resources and power (e.g. quasi-monopoly or tons of money) is needed, or you need to have some binary compatibility with another OS. The latter is difficult due patents and copyright, and because it will likely make appl…

Apple was able to do it, but not without both a compatibility layer for direct binary compatibility (Classic) and a migration path to allow the same source code to be compiled for both OS 9 and OS X (Carbon). Not to mention the heavy Java push they made for a while, which didn't end up becoming much in the long run but did provide one more way for developers to get their applications onto the platform. And developers…

The Java push was mainly driven by the uncertainty of Objective-C's adoption.

Once it was clear developers were ok with using Objective-C, Java Bridge was shown the door.

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

#376

Post by pjmlp »

ausjke wrote: post #355

what's the impact of this watershed for java as a programming language? it seems like the biggest boost for Java for years to come.

Depends how much one enjoys using an outdated dialect of the language and libraries, after Java 6, Android only gets support for Java 7 and 8 features cherry picked by the Android team, not 100% of them.

One reason why they backtracked on Jake and Jill was that they weren't being able to make all the annotation tooling and bytecode manipulation libraries work on the new toolchain.

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

#377

Post by hvidgaard »

psy-q wrote: post #369
CaptSpify wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously some of them need to phone home, I'm talking about the ones that don't need to. And, just because it can't phone home doesn't mean it should stop working altogether.

Yes, and you have to swallow the whole blob as soon as you need any single one of the services. Just want "cloud" messaging for your app? Force anyone who uses your app to install the whole blob. Want just assisted GPS? Too bad, you still force anyone who uses your app to install the whole blob. If Google had made the services modular, it would probably be easier to replace them with homegrown ones, but they made it…

   but they made it a blob because that gives them more power
They made it a blob because they need the data to generate revenue. Googles services are free, if you let them have your data. I'm 100% certain that a paid alternative would not survive because people does not want to pay a reasonable fee for the services, when they can have it for free if they let Google save some, to the User, harmless data - they even get personalized content in return.

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

#378

Post by sametmax »

_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…

Except mobile OS never suffered even 10% of the problems Windows had.

You don't have 1000 toolbar crippling your mama's android browser.

I never had to reformat my mobile to "make a clean" install, and certainly not every 6 month like I used to do with windows.

We never had any large scale infection on Android like confiker.

Reports of anything bad, virus, worms, rootkits... happening on Android are incredibly rare and never happened with my relatives.

Clearly we can't hold Google to the same standard as MS, because they are not even on the same level.

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

#379

Post by vetinari »

oefrha wrote: post #314
chickenbane wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In today's media environment is it strange scary-sounding headlines are published without deep analysis or actual evidence to back them up? But headlines saying devices are vulnerable is not evidence that the Android users are adversely impacted by PHA. On the other hand, I referenced a report with actual numbers of devices impacted. Obviously you should be skeptical, but as you point out, if millions of devices affe…

> ... scary-sounding headlines are published without deep analysis or actual evidence to back them up... Scary-sounding headlines, sure. But there usually is actual evidence. > I referenced a report with actual numbers of devices impacted. No, there is no "actual numbers of devices impacted". A number 1.4 billion is thrown out to impress; the pool of devices to which their analysis applies is much smaller, and of whi…

> Scary-sounding headlines, sure. But there usually is actual evidence.

Actually, there usually isn't any evidence. Scary headlines sell, finding evidence is a hard work that most readers will not understand anyway. Guess what happens then.

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

#380

Post by vetinari »

douche wrote: post #343
chickenbane wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should have started on it years ago As somebody who has been following Android for a while, this statement is incredibly unfair. The Android ecosystem is huge and remarkably safe. For those actually interested in the details, the Android security team releases annual security reviews, and the report for 2016 was just released: https://security.googleblog.com/2017/03/diverse-protections-... The tldr: the number…

Bullshit. I've never had a kernel update in six plus years from my carrier. And while they are kind of a micky-mouse operation, they are the 5th leading mobile provider in the US... P.S. don't get service from US Cellular if there are other options

You aren't going to get kernel updates, even if you get major Android version update.

It's kind of like with RHEL - the fixes are backported in the old kernel vesion and that's it. It has nothing to do with your operator, you can thank Qualcomm and other SoC manufacturers, that they are not willing to make platform support packages for newer kernels for a given chip.

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