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Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

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Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#211
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever considered that there's a huge amount of users that don't care about "graphics programming and usable UI/UX tooling"? Have you ever considered that this "huge amount of users" might not care about graphics programming or usable UI/UX tooling, but that >99% of them sure care about either graphics (games, photos, video, digital painting, ...) or usable UIs and UX? I'm using Linux all the time, and it's…

I'm not saying those things aren't important, but they don't warrant the outright dismissal that I was replying to. Linux has an obvious lack of contribution from designers, designers are employed for products, noone is making money selling desktop Linux as a product. Also, most designers aren't tinkering with open source software alternatives in their free time like developers do. I also feel like I'm missing someth…

Honestly, I think the entire situation where we have multiple DEs/toolkits/video drivers/window managers/input methods is unmaintanable. It would be likely unmaintanable even for a well-funded corporation.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#212
I've had to authorize lots of Steam games this month in 'Windows Security' protected folders just so be able to save replays, or basic controls configuration.

I think MS is going for the kill against Steam this time.

And this is with Windows 10. Windows 11 will require MS permission, and some Steam games will simply never work there.

But you will be able to purchase them again in the MS Store.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#213
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely fascinating that an open OS like windows (not open as opensource, but open to run every program) takes that route. Microsoft really thinks they can compete with platforms like android or iOS, i have to say: Thank you Microsoft!! You accelerate the downfall of Windows! No one will need you in the future, Adobe on M1(Apple), Development on Linux, Gaming on Linux, Workstations Linux maybe some Apple.

Yeah my thoughts! But on the other hand people also use Windows because its the default that comes with their new computer. (Not talking about HN community, talking about regular Joe) As long as Microsoft keeps lobbying OEMs to include Windows and there's no good alternative (looking at you, non-tech-savvy user-friendly Linux distros and major software vendors like Adobe, Autodesk etc, they will only keep locked to u…

> I'd love to see an alternative world where everything has an equivalent open-source software that people can switch to

Keep in mind that software doesn't need to be open source to run on Linux. Developers can still support the Linux ecosystem by creating/porting proprietary software for Linux, and users will consider it when they choose an OS.

Examples of proprietary Linux software that is used professionally:

- DaVinci Resolve (video editing suite): https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/

- Bitwig Studio (digital audio workstation): https://www.bitwig.com/overview/

- JetBrains Rider (IDE for .NET): https://www.jetbrains.com/rider/

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#214
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>purely arbitrary As if years of experience hasn't taught us that opt-in security is stupid. This would be arbitrary if the TPM was useless, but it isn't.

We have to disagree here. The threat models where the security that TPM offers are mostly applicable to the enterprise and business sectors where all devices on the network/AD/VPN have to be trusted and their storage encrypted. There TPM makes perfect sense. You average consumer/home user does not benefit at all from the features of TPM since they're not subject to the same threat model. Here TPM, and also stuff of t…

What about the scenario where your laptop is stolen and the attacker reads your data off the disk? All modern mobile devices protect against this scenario by default, but Windows devices required additional configuration to be protected.

And in fact Secure Boot does protect against Grandma being infected by boot-time malware. And when has it ever been the case that it prevented you from installing Linux?

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to disagree here. The threat models where the security that TPM offers are mostly applicable to the enterprise and business sectors where all devices on the network/AD/VPN have to be trusted and their storage encrypted. There TPM makes perfect sense. You average consumer/home user does not benefit at all from the features of TPM since they're not subject to the same threat model. Here TPM, and also stuff of t…

To give an example harm caused by the TPM / disk encryption feature in the consumer space: A recently-deceased friend's wife contacted me about getting personal data off from her late husband's computers. I ended up being able to get nothing for her. My friend, no doubt influenced by dementia and paranoia he was feeling, changed the passwords, made no note of them, and subsequently died. The computers in question run…

If you can log into his microsoft account on the internet, you can recover the bitlocker key from there if his account on his machine was a microsoft one

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It brings enormous security benefits to end users. TPMs drastically reduce entropy/complexity requirements for things like passwords/pins since the TPM can rate limit guess attempts. Doing that without a TPM is impossible since an attacker can always read the encrypted password off of the drive/directly from memory and then brute force it.

an who of an average user does need that? I'm not an average user but I never need that. I also know no one who can't wait to get it or even think about wanting it. I only read in blogs or HN that one would need it. I think "you need that because of security" is PR/propaganda from certain companies.

As someone with executive function and memory issues, being able to use short pins/passwords to access my secured hardware is incredibly useful.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have to disagree here. The threat models where the security that TPM offers are mostly applicable to the enterprise and business sectors where all devices on the network/AD/VPN have to be trusted and their storage encrypted. There TPM makes perfect sense. You average consumer/home user does not benefit at all from the features of TPM since they're not subject to the same threat model. Here TPM, and also stuff of t…

To give an example harm caused by the TPM / disk encryption feature in the consumer space: A recently-deceased friend's wife contacted me about getting personal data off from her late husband's computers. I ended up being able to get nothing for her. My friend, no doubt influenced by dementia and paranoia he was feeling, changed the passwords, made no note of them, and subsequently died. The computers in question run…

I'm sorry for your loss, but did your friend not have a right to privacy just because he had dementia? Should we be building dementia backdoors into all our platforms' encryption systems? What about cases where people are estranged from their spouses?

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#218
post #212

I've had to authorize lots of Steam games this month in 'Windows Security' protected folders just so be able to save replays, or basic controls configuration. I think MS is going for the kill against Steam this time. And this is with Windows 10. Windows 11 will require MS permission, and some Steam games will simply never work there. But you will be able to purchase them again in the MS Store.

Arguably this is Valve's fault because they insist on putting a ton of stuff in secure folders (under Program Files) instead of where they belong (in the user's home/data directories)

They've had a LONG time to fix this.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also one reason many here don't see: you don't have to bother with the console. Everything can be installed and run with a mouse. Don't take me wrong. I understand the good sides of console programs. You can do a lot there but your average user doesn't care.

What popular end-user software cannot be installed and run with a mouse in e.g. Ubuntu?

Not long ago I upgraded an Ubuntu system to 21.04. It took me more than half an hour of looking around to realise that the "Ubuntu Software" screen everyone was referring to was a separate application that wasn't installed by default. Then I could look up the CLI command to install it via apt.

That sort of thing would be a small (though very irritating) waste of time for many of us on HN but it could have been a showstopper for other potential Ubuntu users who aren't technically inclined and just want a system that works.

Unfortunately in my experience that still sums up desktop Linux in a nutshell. You probably can fix just about anything if you know what you're doing. If you do, you get the benefits that come with running Linux, including avoiding the kind of controlling behaviours we see from Microsoft and Apple in their desktop platforms these days. But the reality is that most normal people won't know what they're doing to that degree and so can't fix the problems.

So continues the cycle where "normal people" don't use Linux and so there is no big market for commercial applications and so most commercial applications don't run on Linux and so "normal people" don't use Linux.

Re: Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

#220
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically I have been using Linux via VMWare for about 10 years now, because I got fed up with Year of Linux Desktop, which to this day still doesn't provide a proper experience to anyone that cares about graphics programming and usable UI/UX tooling. When my Asus Netbook dies (1215B with XUbuntu), the next UNIX travel laptop will be an Air. So you can spare the talk about how much GNU/Linux has progressed, since I…

> "which to this day still doesn't provide a proper experience to anyone that cares about graphics programming and usable UI/UX tooling." Genuinely curious what doesn't work in IE Ubuntu 21.04 for you? Not one of those raving Linux zealots (don't really care that much about privacy), I've just had positive experiences on Linux -- not using it masochistically for ethical reasons, but because it worked very well for me…

I'm not the person you were replying to, but here's the straw that broke this multilingual camel's back: unless Gnome is running under Wayland, switching the keyboard layout steals the input focus away from the foreground window briefly, causing focus-loss event handlers to fire. This might seem an easily fixable minor issue but it's actually a decade-old hairball which significantly harms the experience and can't be fixed cleanly under X.
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