I was just casually checking and looks like they have a page for Apple too..ha http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/malware-apple.html
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Microsoft's Software is Malware
141–150 of 185 posts
Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that simple, unfortunately. For run-of-the-mill desktop usage, i.e. Office stuff, eMail, Internet access, yes, not upgrading is either lazy or stupid. But there are quite a few companies out there who have built applications that are critical to their operations and which do not run on versions of Windows more recent than XP. To be fair, that is just as big a problem, relying on proprietary APIs without even…
I work for one of these large companies. Legacy software does play a role. But I think most of the delays have to do with the state of lethargy of the IT dept. I work in a part of the organisation where IT doesn't even have a plan to upgrade us from Windows XP.
Okay, that is bad.
Microsoft made their schedule for ending XP support public years before it actually happened, and, say, three years should be enough even for a large company.
And even if one has to support legacy software, eventually hardware support becomes an issue as older devices start dying.
If upper management vetoes a migration/upgrade for cost reasons, that is one thing, but not having a plan at all is... kind of frightening.
Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#143Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#144And after reading that, let's take a deep breath and think about Android. From my personal opinion, it's not better than and maybe worse : - Obligation of having a G+ account. Disable it is NOT straighforward at all and it will try to recreate himself often. - Personal content publicly uploaded/displayed in G+ account I had the bad surprise, and few friends also to see that the photos taken with my android phone were…
In Android you can deactive all phone home and cloud features, also most Android device manufactore add various apps that require no cloud connection at all. The same goes for iOS were it is even easier. In contrary to Windows 10 were you can't deactivate several phone home and cloud features. Severals apps are only shipped as cloud-only. The Windows update is forced on you and cannot be deactivated. And to top it, e…
It takes a lot more than cutting Google out of the OS to truly make it secure and private:
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardenin...
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Report finds Android/iOS apps regularly 'spy on users' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34732514
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, and Carnegie-Mellon universities studied 110 apps available on Google Play and the Apple App Store. They found 73% of the Android apps shared users' email addresses, and 47% of the iOS apps shared location data. Android health app Drugs.com shared medical information - including words such as "herpes" - with five third-party domains, including doubleclick.net and googlesyndication.com. The research also found that 93% of the Android apps tested connected to the domain safemovedm.com
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>In contrary to Windows 10 were you can't deactivate several phone home and cloud features.
Configure telemetry and other settings in your organization https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208%28v=vs....
Spybot Anti-Beacon https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/
On any system, Microsoft says that Basic level telemetry doesn't send any identifiable information.
Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it was, are you sure they would be allowed to tell you?
So let me get this straight... you think that a legal requirement should be secret ?
Not should be, is. Stating what one thinks reality is like is not the same as making a moral statement about that reality.
Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work for one of these large companies. Legacy software does play a role. But I think most of the delays have to do with the state of lethargy of the IT dept. I work in a part of the organisation where IT doesn't even have a plan to upgrade us from Windows XP.
Okay, that is bad. Microsoft made their schedule for ending XP support public years before it actually happened, and, say, three years should be enough even for a large company. And even if one has to support legacy software, eventually hardware support becomes an issue as older devices start dying. If upper management vetoes a migration/upgrade for cost reasons, that is one thing, but not having a plan at all is...…
Agreed.
Any company that was paying attention knew that they had a migration problem as soon as Vista appeared in beta. That was 10 years ago.
"After Longhorn was named Windows Vista in July 2005, an unprecedented beta-test program was started, involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers and companies. In September of that year, Microsoft started releasing regular Community Technology Previews (CTP) to beta testers from July 2005 to February 2006." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista
For comparison, that was before Twitter was founded (March 21, 2006) and before Facebook was opened to public access (September 26, 2006).
Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#147I think it is pretty fun to compare "Windows as a service" with actual "SaaS" (eg Google Docs). As a side note, I once mentioned how Win10 driver signing requires EV certs that are not sold to individuals, and remember this response: https://twitter.com/ericlaw/status/619309157791891456
Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#148I wish Microsoft had a way to pay for Windows 10 so I can opt out of the ads, tracking.
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Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#149I had the opportunity to try Windows 10 last week. I was surprised to find that Windows now has pop-up advertisements for Office and Bing embedded in the OS itself that recur during day-to-day usage and cannot be dismissed. That seems wild to me. Also, contrary to opinions that I have heard on HN and elsewhere on the web, Windows 10 is typical poor quality Microsoft software, not one of the "good" Windows like XP and…
The positive opinions of Windows 10 on HN were, for the most part, postings from Microsoft "reputation managers" to create hype and positive spin for the product. http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/06/16/2327213/microsoft-r... https://www.linkedin.com/job/microsoft/online-reputation-man... http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Reddit-Xbox-One-Reputation-... https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1fv5yj/i_saw_micros...
Generally, I find that conspiracy theories only work on the sort of people who are gullible enough to believe in conspiracy theories....
Re: Microsoft's Software is Malware
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
To get access to patches from Red Hat you have to purchase an annual service agreement, for a two socket box it's around $300. If you bought a copy of Windows XP at release it likely cost you around that much and patches and fixes were available to you for fourteen years at no further cost. The equivalent from Red Hat would have run $4200.
Redhat is also only intended for enterprise use (unlike windows XP). You should be comparing redhat to windows server if you want a valid comparison. In addition, with redhat you get excellent support included (that's what you are really paying for). No such luck with microsoft, you just get crappy bottom tier tech support. Finally, if you don't like paying redhat switch to centos. Free and no support.
Or you pay someone else for support. I don't know how many options are out there but where I work, we have Oracle Linux (which is basically RHEL) and get support through Oracle.