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LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

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Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#532
post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

advanced work != advanced tools You can have basic and not very user friendly tool, and work on very advanced topics, such as new forms of networking, innovative database, cool filesystem or storage devices, etc... Or you can be an advanced windows developer with very nice tools, and yet work on something utterly mundane, like an internal app which tracks time off in your company, schedules delivery of parts, or prov…

Windows does plenty of 'advanced work'. Almost all video games are written primarily on and for Windows. > In my experience, most of the advanced work is done on Linux nowadays That's because your experience probably hasn't ever included work on Windows internals. Take it from someone who has—the complexity and 'advancedness' of the stuff running on Windows is at least equal to that of Linux or any other OS. The fact…

I have no doubt that Windows internals are at least as complex as Linux internals. Actually they are likely much more complex - all that backward compatibility won't shrink the API surface or make it easier to program.

But are they "advanced", in the sense of "to make progress or improve"?

Take filesystems for example... Linux has zfs (this one actually came from Solaris, but the latest versions come from ZfsOnLinux), btrfs, bcachefs was pretty cool if not for all that drama. What about Windows? It has NTFS and ReFS, the latter is for enterprise segments only, and is less capable than ZFS. Don't get me wrong, I am sure that ReFS is very complex - it has many lines of code and managing it is hard, it's just it has less features than zfs.

So if you love filesystems, and want to make a difference there, which OS should you work with? Linux, or some sort of BSD.. anything but Windows.

Now, what about networking? I've read about some marketing blurbs about Windows networking features that could mean something innovative. Unfortunately that was it - marketing blurbs. No technical designs, packet formats, no blog posts... You have to go to Linux/BSD for this.

Maybe security? There is a lot of information about Windows security, because it is such a popular target. But what about active defenses? Kernel hardening, sandboxing, lightweight VMs, etc...? This all originated outside of Windows.

Now, I am happy to admit that Windows is a very complex system, and that Microsoft did a great job polishing everything and presenting it to user. Microsoft is also great at taking an experimental systems and getting them in front of everyone (all that GUI hardening comes to mind).

But if you are interested in progress of operating systems and adjacent things, the projects which advance state of the art and introduce ideas no one has implemented before... Don't look at Windows.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#533

This is so much worse that the title makes it out to be: 1. Your OS installs malware (technically manufacturers software) from a 3rd party vendor in background, zero user interaction 2. Happens as soon as you or anyone with physical access plug in a device into the HDMI port 3. That malware has internet and full system access, no sandboxing 4. It starts with every system boot 5. This software gets installed when you…

How can HDMI affect the host computer?

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#534

This is so much worse that the title makes it out to be: 1. Your OS installs malware (technically manufacturers software) from a 3rd party vendor in background, zero user interaction 2. Happens as soon as you or anyone with physical access plug in a device into the HDMI port 3. That malware has internet and full system access, no sandboxing 4. It starts with every system boot 5. This software gets installed when you…

LG Electronics display monitor as Trojan Horse

Except this Trojan Horse isn't offered for free

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#535
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair Microsoft was always shitware. I don’t remember a time when using a Windows machine just worked, didn’t take up gigabytes of space, didn’t crash, and didn’t get messed up by simply using it requiring a yearly or semi-yearly reinstall.

Microsoft BASIC was a pretty decent interpreter, I wouldn't call it "shitware", so there you go?

I don't remember DOS 6.22 blue screening on me. Maybe it wasn't so bad.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux usability has come a long way in recent years. I switched full time to Linux in 2006, but I can absolutely understand those who wouldn't back then. These days? Unless there is a specific piece of software that can't run on Linux (or under Wine), and there is no suitable replacement for it? Yeah I don't know why you would voluntarily stay on Windows (note voluntarily, if IT policy says you must that doesn't coun…

Accessibility. All accessibility stacks sucks in some respect, but Linux's sucks most of all, and Wayland people in particular don't seem to be willing to compromise on security (which is required for accessibility to work).

It's a matter of investment. I do not see anything fundamental dealbreaker in Wayland's security model to support and enable accessibility. It probably just needs investment in engineering to find correct interfaces and ways to do it.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair Microsoft was always shitware. I don’t remember a time when using a Windows machine just worked, didn’t take up gigabytes of space, didn’t crash, and didn’t get messed up by simply using it requiring a yearly or semi-yearly reinstall.

Windows in the 95-XP era wasn't exactly high-quality software, but it was genuine technical innovation, doing what you otherwise couldn't do.

Nothing since then. Thats a long 30 years.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#538

Assuming they don't get a revenue cut, pushing back on Microsoft can in principle be effective here. Microsoft decides what happens here, and presumably today they just take it on trust that hardware makers know what software to install. New driver? Sure. McSpam installer? OK. Maybe they have a guideline saying "Don't ship unrelated garbage" but today it's not enforced because why would you do that? If the Microsoft…

Ah, the usual take. Want to sign everything before it can run, but take responsibility for nothing. And when in doubt, well, the computer did it. When do we start calling out this crap?

It's not the computer that did it. Microsoft did it. Microsoft enabled random hardware with random strings in their connection protocol metadata to point to software on the internet that Windows happily downloads and installs.

Strangely, nobody who runs linux has this problem.

Perhaps because windows "drivers" are so bloated with helper apps and other stuff that they can't possibly all be shipped to end users with the core OS.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#539
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair Microsoft was always shitware. I don’t remember a time when using a Windows machine just worked, didn’t take up gigabytes of space, didn’t crash, and didn’t get messed up by simply using it requiring a yearly or semi-yearly reinstall.

Microsoft BASIC was a pretty decent interpreter, I wouldn't call it "shitware", so there you go?

I would have preferred a Forth on my C64 seriously. But no, we were stuck with this "38911 bytes free" crap.

Re: LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent

#540
post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m no longer sure about their quality though. Out of four Logitech mice I bought recently (four different models), two died within a year. At least their warranty repair/replace process was decent.

What do you do to your mouses to make them fail so quickly? Are you throwing them randomly accross the room?

Use cats. For all great Logi ergonomics, they fall prey to cat hair; and pads cover the screws, so they can't be reassembled pristine after cleaning. Still, M500s is the best.
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