Users Still Not Willing to Abandon Windows XP

Or maybe your system(s) got infected and you never knew, as many kinds of malwares (especially those designed to form botnets) don't exhibit symptoms.

Regarding Mrk's article, same old lies and misconceptions. Again, I suggest reading the actual MS report (its v14 was just released some days ago with several new data).

 

How many times have we heard this before.. lol.... nice try, but no cigar WH.

 

I find my hypothesis very plausible.

You don't seem to be very security-inclined, so how can you be so sure that during all these years (since 95, as you say) none of your systems were ever infected by any kind of malware?

 

To be honest with you, I've, as they say "been there and done that" and found that most of the "security-inclined" stuff is unnecessary.... So your hypothesis is, in fact, way off...

 

Again, I still want to read what kind of experiences you did with your systems in order to reach such odd conclusion of not a single infection since 1995.

Computing is logical and objective, this isn't a subjective matter.

 

Sorry WH, but I don't have time to sit here and chronicle 17+ years of internet and computer experience to you.. You'll have to take it on trust.

 

Or not, as I don't simply "trust", I'm a skeptic by nature.

 

As you wish....

 

Well, if one's router doesn't log any strange outbound packets... Assuming the router isn't compromised itself. But I would think that it isn't, if we're talking about automatic client-side attacks.

 

There are other ways besides a router (not that you didn't know that, just sayin ). If Kerodo is like me, he's been down that anal road of controlling everything (after all, everythings a conspiracy theory, isn't it? ) and found at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter that much if you have knowledge.

Sul.

EDIT: lol, not "it doesn't matter much if you have knowledge" but all that "controlling" things with so much security tools/software doesn't matter that much if you "have knowledge"

 

There's nothing wrong with someone going on an entirely unpatched system using XP for 10 years, 20, 30. If no one cares to exploit their system, or systems like theirs, they could easily get lucky.

I wouldn't call that security, but they could remain clean.

 

Such systems could theoretically remain clean (thanks to lucky, as you say), but they are more likely to not remain clean (thanks to reality).

And when systems don't remain clean, they often negatively affect much more than themselves.

So, there is something wrong here.

Not as wrong as things that normally require the force of the law to be banned, but still wrong.

 

They also provide a wonderfully booming job market. Take the good with the bad.

 

This is almost like saying that we need rampant criminality because it provides a wonderfully booming job market for private security companies.

 

I was kidding. But, yes, it's entirely like saying that.

 

I am most certainly living in a different reality then, with many machines, for years.

In theory at least

I do have a horseshoe hanging above a door, and its been here as long as I have been online... wait just a dog-gone minute, you don't think that...

Sul.

 

im going to go back to xp, just to see if anything happens to me..

i will surf using sandboxie, run a realtime av, and a firewall

 

Or you could surf without anything and still get the same results.
Mrk

 

truly? and these results, being?

 

Please do it yourself.

Make a video browsing with only unpatched XP/IE/Flash. And don't forget to test sites that security companies tell that are infected, for example.

Show us how exactly malware is "a delusion in your world".

 

Whatever you choose it to be.
If you want to get infected, you will. If not, you won't.
Mrk

 

What a fantastic delusion. What you say implies an alternative universe where:

- everyone is naturally "immune" to tricks of social engineering tactics employed by criminals;

- everyone is fully responsible for their system's infections - they simply "wanted" their systems to get infected (masochism?).

Wow, you probably think that internet crimes shouldn't be punished at all, right?

 

I wouldn't call it a delusion. While I currently run av software, in the past on Windows 7 systems, more often than not I would use no security software,
only the standard Windows firewall, with UAC and Windows Defender both disabled. I would regularly visit unsafe sites. Even sites Google stops you from visiting due to being unsafe when visiting via a Google search, I would just copy and past the URL and visit anyway. Despite all of this, is was extremely rare indeed for my computers to get infected. In the rare event that I did get infected, it was almost always due to running an infected download, and not due to my system getting infected by an exploit.

Or to put it another way, I find it quite hard to get infected.

My computers were often not up to date with the latest security patches, as I refuse to reboot when a Windows update requires it. The only time I ever reboot is when Windows starts to stop functioning properly after it is has been running for many days without a reboot, or, in rare cases when a program I install requires a reboot before running it. Even right now on the Windows 7 laptop I'm using, it's more than 5 weeks since installing a Windows update (and over a month since rebooting, despite daily use), and it has remained virus free.

Sure, I'm running Windows 7, and not XP - but I believe I would have similar results with XP, even when Microsoft stops releasing updates.

 

Of course getting infected is less likely than browsing without seeing any problem at a given randomly moment.

There are probably more clean websites than compromised websites. Also, different compromised websites may exploit different vulnerabilities (despite exploit kits getting better).

But when infections happen (and they are much more likely to happen in insecure scenarios), the consequences can be bad - both for your system, data and others.

 

what about using XP with SSDs?

my boss is running XP with a SSD with no problem, but do you get the same performance out of a SSD as you do with Win 7 or 8?

and what about TRIM optimization?
this is only available to 7 and 8.
XP went into BSOD mode when i tried to run it in AHCI mode.

and what about support for USB 3.0?

only Win 8 has that out of the box...

i would be concerned running XP on a newer machine that i am not getting all the performances i could.