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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

#51

Post by Someone1234 »

_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…

The sad part is that these are issues with Android that Linux already solved.

Google uses Linux within Android but instead of allowing the underlying parts to be updated via package management-like functionality, the kernel level stuff is only distributable as images in one "big bang" go.

You could have a bug in a single binary at the kernel level, but instead of a tiny 1Kb diff patch you wait a year for a giant 1.2 GB vendor update that also contains a lot of other changes you have no interest in.

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

#52

Post by lawnchair_larry »

_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…

Google doesn't have 1 security team. Project Zero has nothing to do with Android whatsoever. Totally different parts of the business.

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

#53

Post by _wmd »

problems wrote: post #50
_wmd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stagefright is trivially weaponizable as an MMS worm, in fact it may already have happened

So... where is it? There clearly hasn't been any major deployment of this - especially at the scale of Blaster or Conficker. It's "trivial" perhaps for a single device but every device is different and it'd require its own exploit code, exploit mitigation features cause it to be difficult to actually exploit too - making it quite problematic to deploy in practice.

Are we really so moronic that we need to wait for something to explode before we're ready to acknowledge the fire hazard that caused the explosion in the first place?

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

#54

Post by lawnchair_larry »

huxley wrote: post #27
georgeecollins wrote: post #18

When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?

A lot of Windows NT was based on work Dave Cutler had done on VMS and RSX-11, so while I'm sure most of the code was new, the ideas are of a similar vintage to Unix.

From what I understand, Dave Cutler would probably strongly disagree with that statement!

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

#55

Post by mysterydip »

I had recently been looking for a laptop to replace my wife's aging machine. She wanted something to hit all her social media stuff, save pictures and videos, basic office, and watch her tv and movie streams.

I had a barely-used lenovo that I had put xubuntu on that I wanted her to try first to gauge her size and performance requirements, but she wasn't ready for linux. I searched around a bit (knowing putting windows 10 back on there was not an ideal experience) and came across RemixOS, a version of android for PC.

That's when it clicked for me. She didn't need a traditional PC. What she really wanted was her phone in a bigger form factor (with usable keyboard). I was able to get all her apps on in a few minutes and she had a workable system with nearly no learning curve. I suspect this will be the case for more people as time goes on. I'm in favor of a competitor to windows, and I now think that is android, not linux.

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

#56

Post by eatbitseveryday »

najati83 wrote: post #46
eatbitseveryday wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drive isn't / wasn't so much the "GNU" portion dominating as much as it was just for the Linux kernel itself.

The point of the "Linux on the desktop" meme was that everybody would start using free, preferently GPL'd software for everything. Android is far away from that.

> The point of the "Linux on the desktop" meme was that everybody would start using free, preferently GPL'd software for everything. Android is far away from that.

I guess it depends how you look at it :) I would see it as "not using Windows" but your statement seems to be "not using any closed-source software".

It's an effort with variable goals and there are different opinions what is meant. If you ask rms he'd agree with you. :)

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

#57

Post by problems »

_wmd wrote: post #53
problems wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... where is it? There clearly hasn't been any major deployment of this - especially at the scale of Blaster or Conficker. It's "trivial" perhaps for a single device but every device is different and it'd require its own exploit code, exploit mitigation features cause it to be difficult to actually exploit too - making it quite problematic to deploy in practice.

Are we really so moronic that we need to wait for something to explode before we're ready to acknowledge the fire hazard that caused the explosion in the first place?

If it were so trivial it probably would have already happened. There's tons of cash to be made in SMS and MMS spam.

It's not trivial - there's a lot of devices and exploiting mitigation techniques to deal with, there's not even a reliable PoC that works on real-world devices with ASLR enabled.

These exploit mitigation techniques and differences in builds have basically saved it from becoming the disaster it sounds like at first glance.

I guess to answer your question, yes, yes we are that moronic. Not many people will care unless it's proven rapidly and readily exploitable.

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

#58

Post by WorldMaker »

beaner wrote: post #36
digi_owl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is though that is proprietary to Google, anyone wanting to use AOSP for their own has to clone the APIs. This makes a lie of the whole notion that Android is open source. Yes, the skeleton is open, but the guts are proprietary. And the skeleton on its own is useless.

What makes it useless?

Look at the efforts that Amazon continues to invest in Fire, and CyanogenMod (the Company that Went Bankrupt as opposed to the jailbreak mod that still mostly exists) tried to invest in a Play Store/Play Services competitor, and Samsung is trying to invest in its efforts while also trying to be stealthy about it in its current Cold War with Google...

Android (AOSP) forks are numerous, yet competing with Play Store/Play Services seems expensive and onerous. Nontechnical consumers don't see Amazon's Fire as Android, just an Android-like system that runs many Android apps. Nontechnical consumers thought the same about CyanogenMod (the Company)'s efforts. Samsung's Cold War seems so desperate, from the outside, because they are trying to walk that fine line between remaining a consumer Android and yet still distance themselves from Google's control.

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

#59

Post by E6300 »

digi_owl wrote: post #39
ashark wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're willing to if they can bundle it in something large enough to be—and otherwise more resource hungry than—a (sane) minimal graphical OS. Electron, say.

Effectively using web tech as a VM, dear deity...

You can think of it like that, but really it's closer to a simple abstraction layer.

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

#60

Post by vetinari »

meri_dian wrote: post #4

As the mobile computing ecosystem matures it's becoming clear that it will mirror the PC dominated computing ecosystem. You have the major player (Microsoft/Windows in PC, Google/Android in mobile) occupying about 85% to 90% of total market share [0] while Apple/Mac/iOS will do well in the high end market and control about 10% to 15% share. iOS today controls about 20% to 25% of global market share but Android growth…

We are much further, already. iOS today only controls 10-15% of global market share.
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